Podcasts about Lugg

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A landmark legal case over water pollution gets underway later today. Thousands of people are part of the case which claims that chicken farming and sewage spills are causing pollution in three rivers, the Wye, Usk and Lugg. The case against chicken producers Avara and Freemans of Newent, and Welsh Water, will be heard at the High Court in London. All three firms vigorously deny the claims.A new report from MPs highlights low morale and a lack of trust in officials amongst fishing communities. All week we'll be looking at agroforestry, or farming with trees in the mix: putting pigs into an orchard or planting fruit trees in an arable field to provide wind breaks and food. Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

2026-04-21_Wendy Lugg by CurtinFM 100.1 in Perth, Western Australia

Bible Passages John 3:22-36: John the Baptist addresses the jealousy of his disciples by explaining his role as the friend of the bridegroom and affirming that Jesus must increase while he must decrease. John 3:16: Cited as a recap of the previous week, emphasizing the foundational truth that belief in God's one and only Son leads to eternal life. Key Points The Anatomy of Insecurity: When John's disciples saw crowds moving toward Jesus, they responded with defensive language and exaggeration. This reveals how human insecurity often causes us to distance ourselves from others, blame external circumstances, and use “all or nothing” language when we feel our significance is threatened. The “Messiah Complex”: We often mistakenly look to people—spouses, parents, or mentors—to be our “Messiah” and provide the validation only God can give. Conversely, we may try to be the Messiah ourselves, stepping into a control-freak role where we feel responsible for holding everything together, which is actually just insecurity in disguise. The Friend of the Bridegroom: John uses the metaphor of a wedding to redefine his role. He explains that the “friend” (best man) is not central to the event but finds his joy simply by standing near and hearing the bridegroom's voice. We are called to be involved and present without carrying the weight of the outcome, which belongs solely to Jesus. The Antidote of “He Must Increase”: The cure for fear and self-doubt is not trying harder, but allowing the Holy Spirit to take up more space in our lives. As Jesus becomes “greater” in our hearts, the internal space previously occupied by insecurity naturally diminishes, changing our language from earthly fear to heavenly trust. Sermon Summary This sermon explores the transition of ministry from John the Baptist to Jesus, highlighting the very human struggle of jealousy and insecurity. While John's disciples feared losing their identity as their crowds thinned, John modeled a transformational perspective by embracing his role as a secondary witness to the true Messiah. The message challenges believers to stop seeking significance in their own control or in other people, and instead find peace in the increasing presence of Christ. Call to Action Identify “misplaced Messiahs” in your life—people or situations you are relying on for a sense of security that only Jesus can provide. Practice “heavenly language” by consciously replacing words of fear and self-doubt with affirmations of Jesus' sufficiency and truth. Find a “critical friend” who can help you recognize when your actions are being driven by insecurity rather than the Holy Spirit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlLny5I0naE Sermon extracted from: https://www.youtube.com/live/ZJQu5829t88 Clipped from 00:58:50 to 01:34:24.

Bible Passages John 3:22-36: John the Baptist addresses his disciples' concerns regarding the rising popularity of Jesus' ministry, pointing to Christ's supremacy. John 3:14-15: Contextual reference to the bronze snake and the simple Gospel of being “born again” through looking to Christ. Key Points The Trap of Insecurity and Comparison: John's disciples reacted to Jesus' success with fear and defensive language because their identity was tied to their Rabbi's status. Insecurity often magnifies threats and uses exaggerated language (like “everyone is going to him”) to justify feelings of insignificance. The Illusion of the Human Messiah: Humans often look to others—spouses, parents, or mentors—to provide the validation and security that only Jesus can offer. Relying on “human Messiahs” inevitably leads to disappointment because no person has the capacity to heal the deep insecurities of another's heart. The Subtle Messiah Complex: Insecurity can masquerade as a high sense of responsibility or care. We often feel that if we do not “control” or “fix” a situation, it will fall apart, revealing a heart that is trying to play the role of the Savior rather than trusting the true Messiah. He Must Increase, I Must Decrease: True peace is found in a perspective shift where we move from being the center of the story to being the “friend of the bridegroom.” By allowing the Holy Spirit to take up more space in our lives, we find joy in Christ's success rather than striving for our own significance. Sermon Summary Based on the transition of ministry between John the Baptist and Jesus in John 3, this sermon explores how human insecurity leads to comparison and a desire for control. Through personal reflections on childhood fear and the “Messiah complex,” the message highlights our tendency to look for security in people and roles rather than in God. Ultimately, we are called to follow John the Baptist's example: finding joy in Christ's supremacy and allowing Him to become greater as we become less. Call to Action Identify a relationship or situation where you have been trying to “play the Messiah” and intentionally surrender that control to Jesus. Practice “heavenly language” this week by replacing words of fear and comparison with affirmations of Jesus' sufficiency and trustworthiness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1WW24j9b1Y Sermon extracted from: https://www.youtube.com/live/ZJQu5829t88 Clipped from 00:58:50 to 01:34:24.

I denne episoden snakker jeg med gründer og utvikler, Preben Lugg, som nettopp har lansert WATTOSHI, appen som lar deg tjene harde penger på strømregninga di!Visste du at boligen din er et lite kraftverk som kan bidra til å stabilisere strømnettet vårt? Og visste du at det er en tjeneste du kan få betalt for?Hvordan fungerer egentlig utregningen for nettleie og hvilket potensiale får vi forbrukere når vi får tilgang på vår egen datainformasjon om strømforbruket vårt?Stor takk til Preben for en utrolig spennende prat om en tjeneste vi har ventet på og med enorm stort potensiale! God lytting!Sjekk ut og last ned WATTOSHI-appen på Wattoshi.no eller Wattoshi.com Følg Preben på LinkedIn og på X under navnet:@wattoshiapp og @nodeviewTakk til deg hvis du deler denne podcasten med venner og familie.Og tusen takk hvis du støtter EN OG TYVE TANKER dersom du liker innholdet i denne podcasten og ønsker å gi meg rom til å skape mer.Andreas@walletofsatoshi.comTidevann@bb.noDenne episoden er sponset av SATOSHI CONSULT AS, Norges ledende selskap på sikker oppbevaring av bitcoin, arveløsninger gjennom multisig, konsulentvirksomhet, rådgivning og leverandør av betalingsterminaler for selskaper og bedrifter som ønsker å kunne motta verdens hardeste penger som betaling.Ta kontakt gjennom nettsiden: satoshiconsult.com(siden finnes på både norsk og engelsk språk)Denne podcasten er også laget i samarbeid med Bare Bitcoin, Norges enkleste app for å kjøpe, selge, holde og bruke bitcoin. Enten du ønsker å komme i gang selv eller ser etter et bra sted å sende venner og familie.Last ned appen eller gå til bb.no for å komme i gang og bruk vervekode "TANKER".Altså bb.no for å komme i gang med Bare Bitcoin og bruk vervekode "TANKER" for en hyggelig startbonus.Bare Bitcoin, Norges enkleste bitcoin app.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s95lgjnRL7I Sermon extracted from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s95lgjnRL7I Clipped from 01:13:15 to 01:33:36.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOdl-edeefs Sermon extracted from: https://www.youtube.com/live/3wOAUWLS6DQ Clipped from 01:03:08 to 01:29:33.

Our weekly unofficial in-universe chat where the Master Tavern Keeper, amateur historian in the city of Tobaro, Tilea explains the intricacies of the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy. This week the Master Tavern Keeper, continues to discuss the origins of the infamous Giant “Little Gork” with the mercenary knight Heinrich Lowen, the Truthsayer Sedrik Ó Maoláin from Albion and the neophytes… Also available on YouTube

This sermon, titled "Living on the Edge – Faith and Resources," was delivered by Nick Lugg at Meadowhead Christian Fellowship in Sheffield. It serves as a spiritual launchpad for 2026, challenging the congregation to move beyond mere belief into active, dependent trust in God. Sermon Summary As the church stands at the threshold of a new year, Nick Lugg explores the concept of "living on the edge"—the space where human certainty ends and divine provision begins. He argues that while standing at the edge of the unknown can be unsettling, it is the only environment in which true faith can grow. Using the context of the church's upcoming building projects (146 development) and the personal financial struggles he experienced as a missionary in Zambia, Nick emphasizes that God often intentionally pushes His people to the edge of their resources to teach them dependence. He defines a maturing faith through three distinct qualities: Generosity: Choosing to live open-handedly even when resources seem scarce, confronting the fear of "not having enough" with the reality of God's goodness. Resilience: Refusing to interpret difficulty as God's absence, instead asking how a challenge is an invitation to trust Him more deeply. Courage: Moving forward in obedience despite feeling afraid, focusing on the next faithful step rather than the entire path. The message concludes with a call to stop relying on bank balances or personal talents and to put one's hand into the hand of God, stepping into 2026 with an "honest" faith that makes space for the miraculous. Quoted Bible Passages (NIV) Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." Psalm 23:4 "Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." Philippians 4:11-12 "I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." Full Transcript Nick Lugg: Amen. Bit of a mixed-up day today. It's great that we've been able to share communion together. Obviously, there are things that we pray for. Great to hear encouragement from Mel there as well about how God has been sustaining her. But it's also—I want to speak this morning on the title... it sounds very grand: "Living on the Edge – Faith and Resources." I think when I say "living on the edge," many people will know what that means. We can feel like we're sometimes toppling over the edge. But I just want to spend a few minutes bringing some thoughts about what it means to live on the edge and what it means to grow in faith as we step into a new year. So let's pray again, shall we? Father, we thank you for your word. Pray that you'll bring it alive in our hearts, bring it alive in me, that I might be able to communicate what I know is on your heart for us as a church, for me, for all of us as a community. Lord Jesus, I pray that this would be a year of growth, a year of learning the reality of what it means to trust in you. And so we place it all into your hands. We just ask that you'll speak to us this morning, in Jesus' name. Amen. [Offering segment omitted for the summary; see audio for details.] So, as I said, I want to speak on living on the edge, faith and resources. This is a standalone, like a one-off thing that I want to speak about. I've planned this for a little while. And then next week, we're going to start a series on John's Gospel. It's actually two years since we started Genesis. And only about six months since we finished it. So that was a great exercise and a journey through Genesis. And many times, you know, we found that although there was biblical history and there were things that we learned by looking back thousands of years, we also see the reality of Jesus coming through those pages. We learned a lot about our faith and our response to Jesus today through looking at the first book in the Bible. But one of the things we want to do for the next few weeks and months is focus on John's Gospel, which has a very clear focus on Jesus himself—the actual account of Jesus' life and ministry and his death and resurrection. So we're going to spend some time in John's Gospel and make resources available if groups want to use them as well, so that we don't just have the 20-25 minutes we have on a Sunday, but we can have, as a church community, wherever we gather, an opportunity to look into what God is saying to us through those things. So that will start next week. But today, as I said, I want to speak on living on the edge, faith and resources. So we're on the edge. We're on the edge of a new year. It's always an interesting place to stand. You know, I'm old enough to remember the millennium and the millennium bug and all the chaos that it didn't cause, but the... and all the fireworks that went off for the first time. I think more or less the first time we had all those fireworks. Now it's every year. We've got these massive millions and millions of pounds going off, everybody celebrating, and there's almost a question of, well, we're not quite sure what we're celebrating. It's just like lots of bangs and flashes and "oh, it's a new year, how exciting it is." But for people of faith, it really is... it's nothing different from New Year's Eve to New Year's Day in actual reality, but it is important for us to stand and to reflect sometimes. And so for some, it is exciting, a feeling of fresh starts, new possibilities. For others, it can be unsettling—unanswered questions, unresolved pressure, uncertainty about what lies ahead. And often it's both at the same time, isn't it? So it can be standing on the edge of the unknown, which isn't always a very comfortable place to stand. Christmas 1939, as Britain faced the Second World War, King George VI quoted a poem in his Christmas speech, and it captured that moment. And these words—you may know them, but if you haven't heard them, I'm going to read them now. It said: "And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied: 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.'" "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of Go1d. That shall be to you better2 than light and safer than a known way." So our circumstances are different than 1939. Some would have you think they're not that different, but they certainly are different. But the principle is the same. And one thing as I prepared this, I wanted to emphasize is that I believe that 2026 is not just a year for us to continue our belief in God. You know, we believe in God, we're a church, we come together Sunday by Sunday, we worship, we hear His word, and we go and we live our lives. It's not just about believing in God, but it is a year to put our faith in Him. To really lean on Him, to trust Him, to depend on Him, not knowing all the answers in advance. And it's a really powerful question to ask ourselves: are we ready for that? Are we ready not just to say "I believe in Jesus," but actually "I will trust Him. I will trust Him with everything that makes my life what it is and makes our life what it is as a church." Will we trust Him and allow Him to take us beyond that which we know and beyond that which we can see? Because faith grows where certainty ends. And as a church, we know that God is calling us to big things. We know that we've got the development of 146—God willing, all of that will begin to develop much faster now we come into the new year and builders come back from their holidays and all of that. We're praying and believing for greater impact in our community. We want to see the Gospel changing lives. Not just touching people to say "oh, that's a nice church," but actually "this Jesus has changed my life from the inside out." And that is a sustaining transformation. That isn't just a flash in the pan of people saying "oh, this was great, I had a good experience in the church," but actually it's a lifelong transformation. That's what we want to see in our lives and in the lives of our community. And we want growing clarity about God's vision for our future. Why is it that God has placed us here? We can say we have a mission to our community, we have a mission to Jordanthorpe, Batemoor, we have a mission to Sheffield, but what does that really mean? What does that really look like? What is God calling us to be? And how is He calling us to shape ourselves? And as we grapple with those questions, we know that none of them come with guarantees. And for many individuals and families, 2026 already feels uncertain. You're looking and you're not sure. There's change on the horizon. Things are moving, things are shifting. Faith doesn't mean certainty about events. It can be certain of things we hope for, certain of things we do not see, but not certainty about events or certainty about the way things will work out. And in Proverbs it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding," because faith begins where our understanding runs out. We love to understand everything, don't we? Love to have a handle on everything and say "I know," that's why we... fear and insecurity makes us controlling. We try and control everything, and faith teaches us that we can't, but we can trust in Jesus. Psalm 23 doesn't promise that we avoid the valley, but it says "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." So the comfort of God's presence is discovered in the valley, not instead of it. He doesn't allow us to bypass the valley. He says "Even though I walk through the valley, I'll still find you there. I'll still know your presence there." And that's really uncomfortable because we would love a faith that said, actually, I can call down all the favors of heaven and I will avoid all the valleys of life and all the challenges and all the difficulties. And we know—you know—that's not real, is it? That's not fact. We know that sometimes we have to face the valleys head-on. But even though we walk through those valleys, we will fear no evil, for you are with me. Fear and anxiety are the oldest burdens of the human race. From the moment Adam and Eve sinned, we've known what fear is. When they sinned and they ran away from the presence of God and God found them, and Adam said, "Actually, we hid from you because we were afraid." Where did that come from? That came because of the deficit that had come in the human heart because of sin. But where fear and anxiety are present, then we know that faith can grow. It's an opportunity for faith to grow. It's a fertile ground for faith to grow. And so we can be stepping into 2026—we can jump and cheer and whoop at the fireworks, but there's a nagging feeling in the back of our minds that perhaps we have more questions than answers. Maybe about finances, maybe about your health, relationships, direction that your life is taking or should take. And if you have those questions, that's not a bad place to be. That doesn't mean that we're failing; it means that we're standing in the right place for faith to grow. God pushes us to the edge and allows faith to grow in that place. Why does God provide at the edge? Why doesn't He just give us everything that we want? He's got all the power, He's got all the resources, He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He could just give it to us. You know, why is the funding of God's vision for 146... why is it a struggle? He could just give it to us. But He doesn't; He pushes us to the edge. Why do we need to go through struggle in life? He pushes us to the edge in order that faith can grow. So He made Israel dependent on daily manna from heaven. Elijah was fed by ravens. The disciples were asked to feed thousands with nothing. God has all those resources—God has more than five loaves and two fish. But there was something that He wanted to teach, something that He wanted to drill into their hearts. And He tells us those stories not so that we can replicate them, not so that we can all walk on water... I read—it's not a funny story, it's a tragic story—but it is a weird story of a pastor somewhere who thought, "You know, I've got so much faith, I can walk on water," and he stepped out on the water and sank and never came up. You know, it's not about walking on water, or like, if you're old enough to remember The Secret Diary of Adrian Plass, making paperclips move by faith or any of that sort of stuff. But it's so that we learn never to plan without God. Never to enter a period of time without budgeting for God, without making room for the actions of the Holy Spirit. We're not entering a new year without thinking: what can God do? Our New Year's resolutions are a faithless effort to shore everything up. "I know what this year holds because I've made a resolution." Well, we all know that they all fall apart on the second of January. So there's no point in trying to control the year ahead, but there is a point in making space for God to move. God's provision stories are about creating space for Him to act, not about us being heroes. So what are you anxious about right now as you go into 2026? What are you hoping to achieve? What's on your mind? What's on your heart? And maybe it's only you that knows it. But the question is: have you made space for God in all of that? Have you made space for God in your planning? Or have you already decided what's possible or what's impossible? So easy to decide what's impossible, isn't it? "Oh, it couldn't happen." But in actual fact, what I believe God is calling us to do is to make space in our planning, make space in our thinking, give margin for God to move. Whether it's as individuals or families, or whether it's as a church, we have to... we can't plan our year as a church just by looking at what happened last year. So easy to do that. Look back, "oh yeah, we did all this in the planning, we'll just photocopy the planner from last year and just shift it on a date and everything..." and we'll get back to next year and we'll all be happy. Well, we won't all be happy. There's so much that God wants to do as we put our faith and our trust in Him. Now, I realized actually this year that I've been a Christian for 40 years. That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? I know I don't look that old, but... I could give countless testimonies of what God has done over those years and how He's shown Himself strong in my life. It's just amazing when you think back—miracle upon miracle. I'm sure the same for any of us here; we could give stories about what God has done. And sometimes those things have happened when faith has felt the weakest. There are many, many things that I could tell you that are probably... I've got one story that just came to mind, but I could tell you so many that are more significant, that are maybe even life-and-death situations. But there's one that reminded me when I was thinking about what it means to be pushed to the edge. And we lived in Zambia for a number of years, as many of you will know, and we lived among people that struggled an awful lot and were an inspiration to our faith in so many ways. But we encountered—for us it was serious, but in terms of everything else it was probably quite mild—but we had one particular time when a perfect storm hit us and we ran out of cash completely. The ATMs weren't working. There wasn't any fuel so we couldn't get out of town. The internet was down so we couldn't send out a prayer letter. We couldn't contact anyone. We couldn't do anything. We had no food. We couldn't feed the children. They were supposed to be going to school and they needed stuff for school. And for the first time, we experienced what it meant to have absolutely no power to fix the situation. And so you know what we did? We thought, "Oh well, we better pray." Because that's where God pushes us to the edge. If we're not at the edge, if we've got all of that surplus and all of that abundance and all of that... why do we need God? But we ended up in a situation where we could have said, "Well, where's God? He's supposed to provide for us." But in actual fact, we found that we had nothing and so we were pushed towards Him and we prayed. Not long, impressive prayers, just honest ones that culminated in us making a list of what we needed. And as we basically—as we wrote that list or as we finished it off—there was a knock at the gate. And two ladies—two old ladies that we loved, women who have very little themselves, suffered so much in their lives—stood at our gate with two carrier bags, inside with almost exactly the things that we'd written down on our list. And they said, "Well..." and we were praying—this was like because it takes them quite a long time to get from where they live to the shops to our house. So they'd done all this before we started praying. But they said, "God, we were praying this morning, God told us to buy these things for you." The supplies didn't last long—you know, bread and jam and whatever—but the lesson has lasted a lifetime. And faith grows when we experience God in the impossible situations. And if you're facing an impossible situation, whether it's a small thing like that or whether it's a really big thing, you're in the place where faith can grow. Faith can grow this year in 2026 as we face impossible and challenging, difficult situations. So our faith is about formation, not the outcomes that it brings. Paul the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4: "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstance, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." He thanked the Philippians for their generosity—they'd sent him a gift—and he said, "I don't need that gift, but what it shows me is what is happening in your heart. What it shows me is your faith—that out of your poverty, you have chosen to give to me. And that to me gives me pleasure. I know," he said, "that God will provide for me whatever happens, whether it's through you or through anybody else. But nevertheless, my joy comes from seeing that you've done it, that your faith has grown, that you have met these needs." And so faith—growing in faith is not about guaranteeing outcomes. It's not about... it's not like the prosperity gospel where we're thinking about all the time "what are we going to get by our faith?" But it's about knowing God more deeply. Because God is faithful even when we are faithless. I have found that to be absolutely true. That God has never—when we sing those songs "You have never let me down, you've never failed once, you won't fail now"—those things are absolutely true. But not because of my prayer life, or not because of my righteousness, or not because I've got all the... all the ducks in a row and everything all in order and so therefore God is ready to answer my prayers. He's simply faithful, even when we are faithless. But He invites us into the process because faith changes us. So He's faithful to provide. He is Jehovah Jireh. He will provide all our needs because of who He is by nature of His character. But nevertheless, He invites us into the process, invites us to exercise our faith, invites us to do our bit. And so when faith moves from belief to trust, it doesn't just change what we think, it changes how we live. So the reality is that uncertainty, pressure, and limited resources are here to stay, because that does us good. God owns all the resources of heaven and earth, and yet if He gave it all to us, we would just fall in a heap in terms of our faith. So uncertainty, pressure, limited resources, unanswered questions—those things are good because they push us into a situation where our faith grows and where our faith can take on three visible qualities: our faith can be generous, resilient, and courageous. So faith is generous. Do you know that faith—I've said it over and over again this morning—faith doesn't begin with abundance? It begins with trust. To be generous in our hearts is not about how much we have; it's about what we believe God is like. If we believe that God is reluctant, if we believe that He's limited or unreliable, we hold tight to everything that we've got. Because we don't... we believe if we let go of it, He can't replace it. He can't give to us, He can't pour out His abundance. We can't trust Him—that I need the resources that I have, I need the money, I need the time, I need the energy, I need all of those things held tightly to me because if I give them away, I'll be finished because God is not reliable. But if we believe God is good, faithful, and a provider, we can live open-handed. We can live generous, we can live free, we can live with joy. And that's why generosity in all areas of life is such a powerful act of faith. Because it confronts our fear directly. Not just financial fear, but to be honest, that is the one that comes very often in our lives. Those are the things that trouble our minds the most—fear of not having enough, fear of not being enough, fear of not being secure enough, fear of what might happen. Because we're not that sure that God is who He says He is or He'll do what He says He'll do when He says that He's a faithful provider, when He says that He's a strong protector, when He says that He's our security and our strength. We're not too sure that if we put Him to the test, if we'd find out that that was true. But if we attend to what we believe about God and we put our faith and our trust in Him and we actually decide that regardless of what our life looks like, regardless of what the circumstances are appearing to suggest to us, dare we believe that God is good? Dare we believe that God is faithful? Dare we believe that God will see us through? Dare we believe that God will part the sea and do the miracles? Then we won't be disappointed. But we struggle... you know, we don't struggle to believe that He provides, but we struggle to act as if He does. We struggle to shape our lives according to that. And so we'll speak a good game when it comes to our faith, but will we act it? Will we do it? Will we put it into action? Will people looking from the outside see "this is the God they believe in"? Because they might actually listen to the words that we say, but will they see it in the way that we live? Will they see faith in the way that we respond to challenge? Will they see faith in the way that we are generous? Will they see faith in the way that we interact with one another? And so there's a challenge for the new year—not a resolution, but a challenge. Where am I living closed-handed because of fear? And what does generosity look like for me? It might be finances, it might be time, it might be hospitality, it might be forgiveness, it might be encouragement, it might be attention. It might be any one of those things. But let's choose an intentional act of generosity that actually stretches our trust in God. Not driven by guilt, not driven by "I ought to" or obligation, but faith-filled generosity that demonstrates to God and to those around us that "God, I trust you more than I trust what I can see." There was a lady in our first church who really struggled with this. She was a single mum, she'd been deserted by her husband, she'd got no money—or very little money to live on—and she had no idea. And she was challenged in the idea of giving. And her first response was, "I cannot afford to give anything. This is just my lot in life." And without anybody twisting her arm or getting into her mind or saying "you really need..." she started to get challenged and convicted by the Holy Spirit. And so she did this: she tried to work out an intentional act of generosity. She struggled to actually give, but she said, "What I can do is the amount that I want to give, I can put it in an envelope and I can put it on my mantelpiece in my house. And then when I run out of money, I'll be able to use that money. But I just want to see what is possible." And so she started doing all of that. And guess what? The month passed and the money stayed there, because God had proved Himself to be faithful to her in every way. And so it took that intentional act. She could have stayed in her mind and said, "Well, I know what is impossible. I know what cannot be done because of my circumstances and because of my difficulty." But she chose to step away from those things to look to God and say, "Actually, I will trust you more than what I can see." And God proved Himself over and above. And let 2026 be a year when we prove to ourselves and we see God move in miraculous power. Have you ever recently put yourself in a position where you need God to move in your life? Let's be intentional about putting our faith into action this year. Faith is resilient. Resilience is not pretending things are fine when they're not. We're good at that, aren't we? You know, "yeah, God is great," whatever, but inside we're collapsing. Faith doesn't eliminate hardship but gives us a place to stand within it. Like I said, Paul said he learned contentment in every circumstance. Not because circumstances were easy, but because God is faithful. So resilience grows when we stop interpreting every difficulty as God's absence. Instead of asking all the time "God, why is this happening?", why don't we ask "How are you inviting me to trust you here?" Resilient faith doesn't deny pain, but it refuses to allow pain to define God. And so think about this year, going into this year: where have we been tempted to give up, disengage, or withdraw? Let's decide in advance—even before difficult circumstances have come—that those difficulties will not silence our worship or prayer or our obedience. Resolve, if we're going to make a resolution, let's resolve that we keep showing up, we keep praying, we keep trusting even when answers are slow. So that we can say at the end of 2026 that through it all, Lord, you have been faithful. Thirdly, faith is courageous. Courage is not confidence; it's obedience in the presence of fear. Most significant steps in the Bible, most significant steps in life, happen with trembling knees. It doesn't happen when we feel ready, when we feel able, when we feel strong enough. But it happens when we decide to trust regardless of how we feel. And if we make an honest assessment of the challenges ahead—whether it's for us personally, as families, or as a church—they can easily overwhelm us. So easily. If you... we keep reminding ourselves and laughing about when we bought 146—use that as an example—and somebody said, "Oh, you won't get much change out of £250,000 for renovating." And then somebody said "It's going to cost a million pounds," and we said "No, no it won't." And then of course you add it up and it's going to cost more than a million pounds. And those sort of things are the things that can overwhelm your faith. They can overwhelm you and you think, "Actually, wow, this is more than we thought. This is bigger than we imagined it was going to be." But courage doesn't begin with analysis; it begins with God. It begins with what He can do. When God says "go," our courage says "I don't know how it's going to work, but I trust who you are, God." And we can honestly say that through that project, God has been faithful right up until today. God has been faithful and as we look forward into 2026, we see a year where we see that project coming to completion by God's grace. Is there anything you've delayed in your life because you don't feel ready? Where is God prompting you to step up, speak out, step out? Is there a step of obedience that you've been avoiding? Take it this year. Not ten steps, not a leap into the unknown, just the next faithful step that you know God is asking you to do. What is God challenging you about? Where have you decided to settle back and think "Actually, I'll stay with what I know, I'll stay with what is safe"? Because in actual fact, staying with what is safe is not safe at all, because things change all the time. Things crumble around us, things move, things shift. Faith requires us to trust in God—not to see the whole path, but to trust Him with the next step. It's not about being heroes of faith. Sometimes the stories of the heroes of faith discourage us rather than encourage, don't they? Think, "Well, I couldn't do that." But it's about being honest Christians choosing to trust God when our certainty runs out. And so standing at the edge of 2026, the question isn't "Do we have enough faith?" or "Do we have enough resources?" but the question is simply "Who do we trust? What do we trust?" Do we trust our bank balance? Do we trust our family? Do we trust those closest to us? Do we trust our understanding of the future? Do we trust our own abilities or our talents or our resources or whatever it is? Or do we trust God? Do we put our hand into the hand of God and walk into the unknown with Him? And so as we live on the edge of 2026, our takeaways are that: Faith is generous—trust God enough to give even when it feels risky. Faith is resilient—stand firm when life challenges you. Faith is courageous—step forward in obedience even when you feel afraid. And so let's pray and maybe the team can come back and as we worship, let's turn our hearts to God and think about what that means. I believe that God has application for us in all sorts of different ways—different responses that we might have. You might be carrying different challenges. And if as we worship, you know that there are steps that you need to make to establish your trust in God—you know you need to trust Him but you don't know how, you don't feel it—then take this opportunity to step into 2026 and step forward and come and pray. Because there is an opportunity for us to pray together. Don't even need to know the details, don't even need to know what's going through your mind or through your head or through your heart, but we can stand together and pray. Make a statement to God that, "Yes, I'm going to trust you, whatever happens in 2026, or with whatever is burdening me now, I'm going to give it to you, Lord, and I'm going to trust you and I'm going to believe you and I'm going to make space for you to do the miraculous." And so let's worship, and if you need to make a response, please do, and please do step forward so that we can pray together.

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Our weekly unofficial in-universe chat where the Master Tavern Keeper, amateur historian in the city of Tobaro, Tilea explains the intricacies of the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy. This week the Master Tavern Keeper, discusses the origins of the infamous Giant “Little Gork” with the mercenary knight Heinrich Lowen, the Truthsayer Sedrik Ó Maoláin from Albion and the neophytes… Also available on YouTube

Nick Lugg

Sermon Summary Title: Fall on Your Knees Speaker: Nick Lugg Context: A Christmas message exploring the true cost and response required by the coming of Jesus. Overview: In this message, Nick Lugg challenges the congregation to move past the sentimental traditions of Christmas and confront the reality of who Jesus is. Referencing the line "Fall on your knees" from O Holy Night, the sermon asks a central question: "What is Jesus worth to you?" Key Themes: Response is Mandatory: Just like the Shepherds, Wise Men, and King Herod, no one can remain neutral to Jesus. His presence demands a response—either worship or resistance. Worship as Surrender: True worship isn't just singing songs; it is a life posture of "falling on your knees." Nick uses the imagery of the 24 Elders in Revelation casting down their crowns to illustrate surrendering our status, identity, and security to God. Jesus is Central, Not an Add-on: The sermon warns against treating Jesus like an "interior decorator" who just enhances our existing lives. Instead, He often comes as a "wrecking ball," dismantling our wrong priorities to rebuild us on a better foundation. The Call to Re-evaluate: Listeners are urged to identify what "crowns" they are holding onto—career, reputation, comfort, or sin—and to determine if those things are worth more to them than Jesus. Audio Transcript [00:00] Nick Lugg: Good morning. Congregation: Good morning. Nick Lugg: Happy Christmas. Not quite there. We, um... Oh look, it's there. Because it's Christmas we are going to do PowerPoint. Now, this is not my primary skill set, so it's a bit like rubbing your stomach, patting your head, and standing on a beach ball all at the same time. So I'm hoping to remember to press the button at the right time. [00:26] Our prayer and our desire all the time—and always has been every Christmas—is to enjoy the Christmas season, to enjoy the atmosphere, to enjoy all that Christmas is to us. But at the same time, by God's grace, crack it open and get to the reality of what God is wanting to say to us each and every time. We can't be reduced to people that just do traditions. That just do, um, repeat—you know, we just get on rinse and repeat every year. Same thing: bring out the same songs, do the same things, go through the same motions. Because God has always got something fresh to say to us. [01:05] And that's why we've had this mini-series over Christmas where we've, uh... the eagle-eyed amongst you will know that it's been related to the carol O Holy Night. The first one—I think they were slightly in the wrong order, but it doesn't matter because we've got grace—but the first one Johnny spoke was "A weary world rejoices." And then I think Andy, uh, last week was speaking on "The thrill of hope." [01:32] And it's just those... just those lines have so much relevance and so much resonance for us in the world that we live in and the lives that we are leading. A weary world rejoices. But yet, and behind everything that we seek to do as a church, and everything we seek to begin, is to bring that thrill of hope. But as the curtains open, and as heaven is drawn back, and as we begin to see all that is going on behind Christmas, there is also the response, which is: Fall on your knees. [02:07] And the question this morning: What is Jesus worth to you? What is Jesus worth to me? That if we don't come out of Christmas with a greater sense... You know, we've sung these majestic carols—Adore, come let us adore, let's worship Him, and all the other lines that I've forgotten. You know, they—but they are majestic, honestly. But... you know, we adore Him. But if we don't actually adore Him, if we don't actually wrestle with the question: What does, therefore, it mean that He's worth to me? How does His coming—Christmas, the coming of Christ—how does His coming impact my life? How does it change the shape and the way that I think and the way that I act and the way that I live this life that He's given me? [02:54] What is Jesus worth to me? Oh look... [clicks clicker]. So the real story of Christmas, we say it every year, it's not sentimental, is it? But it's one of humility. Anonymity. Struggle. And the telling and the retelling of the story of Mary and Joseph and all that they went through doesn't really ever quite connect and communicate what it must have been like for them to experience what they experienced. [03:22] There was pain. Discomfort. Fear. Anxiety, no doubt. Stress. Uncertainty. Tears. Maybe there were short tempers. There were... there were all sorts of things going on that we would instantly relate to, and yet we don't see on the Christmas cards. But it's into that world, not the Christmas card world, that Jesus came. Jesus came to our world. We might think, "Well, it was all right, you know, Christmas was just so lovely and everything was just so beautiful and there was like shining tinsel and angels and shepherds and it's all so peaceful and everything else on the Christmas cards." But what about us? What about Sheffield? What about Jordanthorpe, Batemoor? What about where I live? What about my background? What about my world? Jesus came into that world. [04:15] And everyone who encountered Jesus had to respond. And the question for us today is the same. As we ask "What is Jesus worth to me?", how do I respond to Him? How do I respond to the fact that He has come? Not just come to the world, not just come to all people—He's come into my life. How do I respond, therefore, to this majestic appearance? [04:42] He's the Son of God. [Struggles with clicker] Is that the one? This is where it all goes wrong, you see. Anyway, it don't matter... [Adjusts slides]. He comes on the margins of society. He's ignored by society. He's unnoticed by society. He's born away from comfort and privilege. The Bible tells us in Philippians that He, though being in very nature God, He didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped, but He came down, took on the very nature of a servant. He took the opposite of what we would think somebody of His power and authority had. [05:22] I was... saw an article or a video report about Air Force One—the President of the United States' plane. You know how when it flies around, all the preparations and all the protection that it has, you know, fighter jet escorts and all of that. None of that for Jesus. But even as a baby, before He ever taught anything, before He said anything—He just cried like babies do—before He healed anyone, before He performed a miracle, He provoked profound responses. [05:54] You know, the first miracle we read about was when He turned water into wine at a wedding. He was an adult. But before all of that, the story of Christmas is about the responses that people made to who He was. Not what He did. Who He is is what makes a difference in our lives and causes us to respond. [06:14] And so we have the Shepherds. Ordinary people. Caught in their routines. But shaken awake by God to say: "Good news of great joy for all the earth, a Savior is born." Pointing the way to Him. And so they got up from their routine, they got up from their humdrum existence, and they left everything to go and see Him, to go and worship Him. [06:37] The Wise Men. Men of influence and education. They were willing to travel hundreds of miles and bring costly gifts because He was worth it. That's not an easy thing to do. It's not easy to travel. You might think it's easy... you know, even traveling these days, going to Zambia or going to Nepal, it's a... it's a consideration. Even just sitting still doing nothing on a plane. Let alone getting on a camel and going hundreds and hundreds of miles. But they considered that they needed to respond to what they had heard and what they had seen. [07:11] There was King Herod. He was a king with wealth and power and influence and all the things that the world could give him. And yet he saw Jesus as a threat and said He's worth eliminating. He wanted... he responded to Jesus. There's no neutrality. One baby, three responses, but everyone responds. There is no neutrality when it comes to Jesus. When He comes into our world, there is no neutrality for us today. When He comes into... we have to respond. We have to ask: What does His coming demand of me? What is He worth to me? What do I do... what do I do about His coming? [07:51] Jesus demands a response. His very presence draws a response from our hearts. Or it should do. Because there is no neutral. No matter how much we want to live in neutral gear. No matter how much we want to be observers and spectators of all of this and just say, "Oh well, you know, we'll see how it goes." Jesus demands a response. And His very presence forces a collision with our priorities. He comes into our hearts. [08:19] I remember that experience. I've given my testimony before, but I remember how I was like a spectator. I was somebody who was beginning to think, when I was 17 years old, and thinking, "Oh yeah, I think I believe in Jesus. I think He's real. I think..." and I went through all of that process for a year. But at that moment that I asked Him to come into my life—BANG—there was that explosion. Things happened. Everything changed shape in my life, in my priorities, in my understanding, in the values. All of that had to be reassessed. [08:50] When Jesus comes into our world, everything has to be reassessed. When He steps into someone's world... when He steps into your world... you cannot carry on as before. I cannot carry on just as before. Everything that we hold dear. Everything that we love. Everything that shapes our identity, that makes us say, "Well this is who I am." Jesus confronts it. He collides with it. Causes it to change shape permanently and forever. [09:20] Not just an emotional moment where we just say, "Oh I think I believe in Jesus now." But actually He physically comes... and He comes into our hearts, He changes the shape of everything from the inside out. Everything that commands our time, our energy, our attention has to be reassessed in the light of Jesus coming. All of it challenged by that one question: Is it worth more to me than Jesus? [09:44] I remember when I was on a mission trip one time in Russia—in the old Soviet Union actually, I can say it now, we had to keep it secret in those days. But, um, we went and there was somebody that was really taken with the Gospel message and they were listening to it all. And they were saying to the person who was sharing with them, they said, "But if I become a Christian though, do I have to... do I have to stop smoking?" And the person was like getting into a bit of a twist, you know, "Oh well, you know, God understands us and God doesn't judge..." and trying to explain it all. [10:14] And then there was this evangelist guy that was with us who was much more to the point. He just came in and said, "Yes. You do." He said, "And if you ask me if I believe in Jesus, do I have to stop wearing blue jeans? I tell you: Yes, you do." He said, "Because it's not about the smoking, it's not about the blue jeans, it's not about the whatever. But the very fact that you're asking that question means that there is a confrontation with what you want. With what you hold dear. Is it worth more to you than Jesus? Give it up! Change it! Change shape!" That's what happened at Christmas. Jesus came into our lives. And so those little questions that come in the light of Jesus... they should become irrelevant. "Can I still do this? Can I still do that?" Why are you asking those questions? Jesus is worth more than all of it. [10:59] And so we have to reassess our priorities. That's what happened at Christmas. So the Shepherds left their livelihood. They left... presumably they left the sheep... couldn't have taken all the sheep to see Jesus, could they? The Wise Men gave their treasure. Herod protected his throne. And we do the same. When Jesus comes, we have to respond. Either we worship, or we resist. There is no neutrality. [11:27] Worship is more than a song. "For a song in itself is not what you have required." And the rest of it. It's not just what happens on a Sunday, is it? We enjoy it. We enjoy the worship. We enjoy our singing. But we call it "worship," we label it "worship," and yet there is so much more to worship. Worship is not an event. Worship is not 30 minutes. Worship is a life posture. It's a life position. It's a life decision that says: "Come what may, Jesus, you are worth it. You are worth my life. You are worth everything I have, everything I can give you." [12:02] I remember a friend of mine who was on mission in India, and he took a team to India. And these sort of young, enthusiastic people that were there, and they encountered a church that was quite different to the type of lively, charismatic church they were involved in. And yet this church was full of people that had been imprisoned for their faith, had been beaten up for their faith, had been through all sorts of struggle. And this bright-eyed young evangelist person said to the guy who was leading the team, he said, "They don't seem to know much about worship, do they?" [12:35] And he said, "Well, it depends what you mean by worship. If you mean music and singing and songs, then maybe they don't know... you know, all of that. But there's an awful lot that they do know about giving their entire life for Jesus and saying: You are worth everything that I can give you." Worship says you are more than anything else in my life. The old carol says: "What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part. Yet what can I give Him? Give Him my heart." [13:12] So there isn't anything we can give that impresses Jesus. There isn't anything that He says, "Oh, I think I quite like..."—whether it's our blue jeans or our cigarettes or whatever. It's not about what we give up in that sense. But what we give Him. We give Him our trust. We give Him our obedience. We give Him our love. We give Him our hearts. And that is a whole life thing. That's something that brings a change from the start, and it goes through year after year after year. It's where Christianity is not a flash in the pan. It's not something that we do for a season and then we move on to something else. It's that if truly Jesus has come into our hearts, things have changed. Our priorities have changed. Our vision has changed. Our values have changed. Everything changes and it can't change back. [13:58] But our hearts are shaped, aren't they, by our culture. By comfort. By self-protection. And so we're tempted to use Jesus as an add-on. As a "life enhancer." Someone who fits in with our lives. Instead of someone who rearranges our lives. We treat Him a bit like an interior decorator. Comes in and, you know, tells us what color curtains to have and how to enhance the arrangement of our furniture to give us the best energy and all of that sort of thing. And yet, when He turns up with His hard hat on and a crane with a wrecking ball to come and knock the whole thing down, we don't like that. [14:38] His arrival demands more. And so the only response that we can give Him is to fall on our knees. One day in eternity, scripture says, the 24 Elders fall down and worship. They lay their crowns before the throne. They lay their crowns. In many translations, they take their crowns and they cast them. They throw them. They throw them down at the feet of Jesus. Why do they do that? Why the crowns? Because the crown is a symbol. The crown is a symbol of their identity. Their status. Their achievements. Their authority. Whatever gives their life value in the eyes of others. [15:20] We love it, don't we? Medals and gongs and crowns and uniforms and achievements and things that we can say about who we are and what we've done and what we've achieved. All of that constitutes our crown. And yet when they were in the presence of Jesus, they fell down and worshipped and they lay their crowns before the throne. Say: "Everything that I am, Lord God... have it. Whatever I think I am, You take it, Lord. Because it's... YOU are worth more than that." [15:52] Fall down on your knees. Nothing I have. Nothing I achieve. Nothing that defines me comes close to the value of Jesus. And that's what falling on our knees means. So we let Him question what we hold onto. We let Him reorder what we value. Rather than let's have a discussion about it—"Lord, I think, you know, do a trade, do a deal. Maybe I can keep some of this... you can have this, but I'll have that." It's a complete, radical reorganization, reordering of everything that is valuable to us. [16:26] There are things that define our lives wrongly. Things that we would say about ourselves if somebody asked us, "Well this is what I am. This is why I am like I am. This is what has made me to be like I am." And we settle into that because we think, "Well, this is me. This is just how I am made. This is how I am wired." What if Jesus comes in and dismantles the things that wrongly define us? What if He wants to reshape and rebuild and change our outlook and change our vision of ourselves and change our vision of others and change our vision of the world? He can do that. And He does that as He comes into our hearts. [17:03] Let Him replace our plans with His purposes. What is it that You want, Lord, in my life? What is it that You want in our life? What is it that You want for us as a church? Jesus. Because You are worth it. Whatever we think that we might be or we might achieve or we might... what status we might have... we lay it all before Jesus and say we fall on our knees before You, Lord. Have Your way among us. Fill us, God, with Your Spirit. Not only just to give us an experience that blesses us, but an experience that changes us from the inside out. That reshapes us. That demolishes us and rebuilds us. [17:42] Let Him confront our comforts. The things that give us security. The things that we hold onto. All of those things. Like I said, He's not an interior decorator. Someone making suggestions to make life better. But our worship says: "Do whatever You need to do, Lord, because I am Yours." [18:02] And so, as we fall on our knees, we re-evaluate what we treasure. Ask yourself a question: What in my life currently holds a higher value than Jesus? It's a tough question. And it's not coming from the pulpit saying "Ask yourself!"—pointing back at me—ask yourself. There's so much that takes place in our lives, so much that is established in our lives that is... takes the place of Jesus. So re-evaluate what we treasure. Our comfort. Our time. Our reputation. Our resources. A career. Relationship. Control. A painful identity I don't want to let go of. A sin that I cling to. [18:50] All of that can form a crown. That Jesus demands a response. That we know that we are holding onto those things, but when we come into His presence, we know there has to be a response. There is no neutrality. There's no "Oh, well I think I'll take it or leave it" or "I think I'll wait until next month and see how I feel then." No. When we meet Jesus, there has to be that change. There has to be that response. There has to be that worship. [19:14] And so, take one thing today that has become a crown you hold tightly and consciously place it before Jesus. What is it in your life this morning that you know... Ask God to reveal to you, to show you, what is it that you hold that you can actually... that you need to throw before Him? You need to surrender it. And tell Him: "Jesus, You are worth more than this. All my life I've held onto this thing. All my life this has defined me. All my life this has been the one thing that I don't want to let go of. But Jesus, You are worth more than all of that. And I lay it before You today." There's an opportunity today to lay these things before the feet of Jesus. [19:54] Secondly, reorient our priorities around Him. What are our priorities in life? Does our lifestyle reflect the value of Jesus? The one we adore? The one we sing about? What about the application of that worship? Do we adore Him so much so that our decisions honor Him? Our schedule and our priorities reflect His importance? Our giving, our serving, our obedience demonstrate that He is worth it? Not only to Him, but to anybody that looks at our lives, they say, "No, this person values Jesus more than anything." [20:30] Does our worship cost us anything? Or is it just convenient? Those who responded to Jesus right back at the beginning, in the beginning of the Christmas story—their worship cost them. It took something out of them. It tired them. It stressed them. It pained them. But it was worth it because they were coming to Jesus. [20:53] And so think about an area of life where Jesus has been an add-on. Where we've just invited Him and said, "I like the fact that You're in my life, Jesus, and perhaps You can help me. Give me a little bit of power here and there just to help me through a few things, over a few humps. But don't get too much involved. Don't get too nosey into what's going on. Because I think... I think You know Your place, Jesus." Is He an add-on? Or is He central? [21:18] That's the challenge as we go forward. Not about "Can we raise enough money for 146?" or "Can we, you know, what do we do about this or that?" What's the practical things to do with the growth of a church? It's about as we grow as a community, will we actually have Him in the center of everything that we are and everything that we do? Will He be our first and our last thought in every decision that we make? How does this honor Him? How does this reflect His worth? How does this reflect His value? Because then the church will grow with people that will also know that Jesus is the priority. Jesus is the center. Jesus is the focus. [21:55] And thirdly, reopen our heart to encounter Him. Some of these questions can be at the first stage of our faith... you know, "What's Jesus worth?" But in actual fact, you can have that radical encounter with Jesus, you can have that moment where you know that you've given your all to Him... but five years, ten years, fifteen years down the line, things can look different. You can get jaded. You can get settled into "routine Christianity." Familiar. Predictable. Safe. Christmas is familiar, predictable, safe. But Jesus is coming. Jesus comes into our lives and challenges our priorities. [22:38] And so He's calling us to meet Him again. And for those of us that have become dulled and routine and predictable and safe, there is still that call from Jesus to say: Will you actually reorient? Will you actually re-evaluate? Will you actually reopen your heart to encounter me again? Not emotionally or artificially, but deeply. Pray: "Lord, show me Your worth again. Disrupt me if You must. Call me out of my routine and lead me back to worship." [23:09] And so there's a challenge. Will you worship Him now—today, this morning—and will you worship Him forever? Because it's not sentiment, it's transformation. Christmas is sentimental. It pulls at our emotions. It pulls at our nostalgia. If you ever spend any time on Instagram, these videos come up of what it used to be like in the 80s... I know some of you are thinking "What's the 80s?" But they were good. Christmas was good. It was sentimental and it was emotional and you've got all sorts of childhood memories from there. Probably go a little bit back before the 80s as well, but we won't go there. [23:49] But Christmas is sentimental. But Jesus is transformational. The coming of Jesus transforms. He didn't come to give us sentiment. He didn't come to give us emotion. He's not Father Christmas. But He did come to change everything. And so when the Shepherds saw Him, they ran to Him. When the Wise Men saw His worth, they knelt before Him. When the Elders see His worth, they throw their crowns down in front of Him. And when we see Him, what do we do? Fall on our knees. [24:26] And so today the question isn't simply "Do you believe in Jesus?", but "What is He worth to you?" Will you worship Him not just now, but forever? Will you lay your crown before Him? Will you allow His presence to rearrange your life? Reshape you. Not just now, but forever. For the rest of your life. And into eternity. That Jesus will be worth it. What a terrible thing to just touch the surface of what it means to know Jesus and then arrive in eternity and think, "Oh, that's what it was all about." That we would know Jesus now. This Christmas, may we truly see Him. And when we see Him, fall on our knees. Amen. [25:12] Nick Lugg: Jonathan, are you there? Oh, you're there. The worship team can come back, please.

Erica Lugg

Erica Lugg

📄 Sermon Summary: Grieving and Quenching the Spirit Speaker: Nick Theme: Grieving and Quenching the Holy Spirit (Part of the "Life in the Spirit" series) Key Scripture: Ephesians 4:30 – "And do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live." 1. The Principle of Responsibility The sermon opens by linking the great blessing of the Holy Spirit (discussed the previous week) with great responsibility (a modified Spider-Man quote). The danger is that Christians can focus solely on the positive aspects of God's blessing and forget their responsibility to live a life that pleases the Holy Spirit, not grieves him. 2. The Danger of Passivity Active Waiting: The concept of "waiting on God" is often misunderstood as passive inaction. The speaker contrasts this with the attitude of a "waiter" in a hotel (using a personal story from Nepal and an example of the ushing ministry in Zambia). An excellent waiter is active, alert, concerned, and anticipates the needs of the person they serve. Pleasure vs. Grief: Our relationship with God should be one of active engagement and should bring pleasure to God's heart, not grief. It's not about seeing how much we can "get away with" but about actively seeking to please Him—this is the true meaning of loving God. The absence of a genuine relationship brings God grief. 3. Sin is Dealt With, But Lack of Faith is a Struggle Christianity is Obsessed with Love, not Sin: Referencing a debate between Professor Richard Dawkins (atheist) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (new Christian), the speaker affirms that while sin is real, Jesus has broken its power on the cross ("It is finished!"). The focus of Christianity should be on love, life, and hope, not dwelling on sin. Confession and Freedom: If we sin, the solution is to confess it, receive forgiveness, and walk away from it (like Jesus telling the woman, "Go and sin no more"). Sin is dealt with. The Greater Grief: Unwillingness and Unbelief: The harder issue that grieves the Spirit is our unwillingness to enter into all God has for us, our unbelief, and our failure to actively walk in the power of the finished work of the cross. 4. Five Areas That Bring God Pleasure (and their opposites cause grief): The sermon outlines five practical ways to actively seek a life that pleases God: Faith (Hebrews 11:6): Without faith, it is impossible to please God. We must continually believe God in what He is able to do, even when we have struggled with faith in the past. Unbelief grieves Him. Love (John 13:35): We must fight for unity and love one another, valuing others even more than ourselves. It is more important to love than to "win an argument." Division and disunity grieve the Holy Spirit. Obedience (1 Samuel 15): King Saul was rejected as king because he valued his own idea of a sacrifice over simple obedience to God's command. Obeying is better than sacrificing. Self-confidence and our own "theology" are not enough; we must be attentive to exactly what God wants. Thankfulness (1 Thessalonians 5:18): A grateful heart pleases God. It is a simple but powerful act that opens the door to our relationship with Him. An ungrateful heart grieves Him. Perseverance in Faith (Galatians 6:9; 1 Peter 1:6-7): The "well done, good and faithful servant" is spoken at the end of the journey, after we have walked through all the trials and challenges. Jesus's prayer for Peter was not for a new car, but that his "faith won't fail." Through perseverance, our faith is proven genuine and brings God much honor. Conclusion The core question for every Christian is: "Are we resting on the fact that we wear a Christian badge, or are we active in seeking a life that pleases God in the here and now and in the in-between?" 📝 Transcript of "Nick's Sermon" I'm just processing what Mike said, that it's sad the notices are finished because Nick's coming to speak. [laughter] Uh, yeah, buckle up. Um, we are on a, we're still on the "Life in the Spirit" series, and Jonathan spoke last week about the, uh, about being filled with the Spirit and being continually filled with the Spirit. And there was a great response and people came forward, and people were touched and blessed by the Holy Spirit. And so it falls to me this morning to pick up the subject of grieving and quenching the Spirit. And, uh, yeah, we've got to, we've got to take things from all angles, haven't we? And my, my main passage that I want us to look at this morning is in Ephesians chapter 4. When I say passage, it's a verse, actually. It's Ephesians chapter 4, verse 30. And it says this: "And do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live." "Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption." "Do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption." And I want to slightly misquote Spider-Man by saying, "With great blessing comes great responsibility." It's essential that we are hungry for God's Spirit. It's essential, as Jonathan was saying last week, that we are continually asking him for more. And so much of what we expect is, is positive. We don't even think sometimes of the angle where God might be, might have a, have a view on how we, how we are living, or how we are thinking, or, or how we are dealing with him, because it's always blessing. The prophetic words are always, "I love you," says the Lord. Everything is so positive. And it's right, it's good that we get encouraged by things, but we have to remember the responsibility that comes on the other side of how we deal with the Holy Spirit of God. It's essential that we, we reach out to him for the times of refreshing that come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:20 it says, but just as we're eager to receive everything good from him, we must be eager to make sure that we don't live in a way that in any way offends him or grieves him or brings him displeasure. We don't want God to withdraw from us. Because the frightening thing is that we can continue in all that we do. You know, the way that we gather on a Sunday, and the way that we sing, and the way that we interact, and the way that we listen to the Word, we can do all of that without actually having the presence of the Spirit with us. And sometimes we, we might not even be aware if he's withdrawn himself. And so we have to be really alert and to wait on the Lord as the Word says. Now, what do you think of when it, when we talk about waiting on God? Sometimes it can be a quite a passive approach, and we sit back and we fold our arms, we say, "Well, I'm waiting for you, Lord. Waiting here. Waiting here for you. Let's see what you're going to do. Let's see what you've got." You know, and then we, we wait and we think, "Well, where is God? Where has he gone? You know, what, what's happening? Why doesn't there seem to be anything happening?" And we have this sort of passive approach to waiting. But there is another verb to wait: to be a waiter, if you like, like in a restaurant or in a hotel. We begin to see our relationship with God differently. When I was in Nepal, I stayed in a hotel, um, which was actually, it was quite cheap compared to hotels that you can stay in around the world. But what stood out in that place was the attitude and the approach of the people that worked there. Every time I stepped out of my room into the lobby, there was somebody that said, "Are you all right, sir? Can I help you with anything, sir? Is there anything I could do for you?" Any question that I had, they could answer. Apart from, um, why I was having curry for breakfast, they didn't answer that one, but they, they, [laughter] they were really there to serve me. They were like, there was, there was like a real genuine interest in my welfare, what did I want? And they were able to anticipate in advance what I wanted. In Zambia, um, there's a ministry of being an usher. You know, we have welcome people here at the door, and it's all very British, you know, we shake hands, we give a hug, "How are you doing?" whatever, and that's, and that's it, and then we go and we find our seat. But in Zambia, there's a real ushing ministry where people will actually attend to your every need, not just pastors and, and, and bigwigs, but, but everybody. I've been in situations where I've, I've had, I've had no idea that people have been aware, but I've, like I had a headache, and maybe I was showing it, maybe I was like grimacing or whatever, and somebody would turn up with, "Here's the paracetamol for you." And like, you know, there's just that, that awareness and that concern to, to be able to meet the needs that you have. And I think there's something in waiting on God that is that, that is very active, not, not passive, not sitting back with their arms folded waiting for him, but actually thinking, "What does he want from me? How does he want me to live? How does he want me to approach this situation? How does he want me to think here? How does he want me to act? How does he want me, what does he want my attitude to be? Lord, how can I bless you with my attitude, with my approach to life?" Being aware of him, considering what he wants, considering what he needs. Don't ever take him for granted. We're very British, aren't we? Where you think, oh, well, you know, we, we, we step back and we, and we become very, like I said earlier on, we become very passive and very, uh, non, non-engaged. But in actual fact, God wants us engaged with him and to live and to act and to speak and to deal with him and relate to him in a way that, that not only satisfies him so he can tick a box, but actually brings pleasure to him, rather than grief. And it affects the way we seek and respond to him every day. It's what it means to actually love God, to take care of how we live, not because we're afraid of him, not because we're afraid of punishment, but because of how much he's done for us, because of how much he has achieved in our lives. Not taking an attitude that says, "Well, I wonder how much I can get away with." You know, I think, um, it's uh, it's interesting, I'm not, not getting party political, but you know, it's interesting seeing the government sort of jumping through hoops saying, "How can we put up taxes without putting up taxes?" And, you know, "How can we, how can we say we're not going to put up income tax, but really we're going to put it up, you know, here?" And it's like, and then if we, if we spin it this way, everybody will believe us. And it's like, and it's that we can be like that with God. "How can we, how can we just get away with stuff? How can we, how can we, we, we live how we want to do, but still do it in a way that appears to be pleasing God?" Yeah, not "how can I get away with it?" but "how can I please him?" We have the opportunity to make God smile. We have the opportunity to bring pleasure to the heart of God. We talk about Christianity is not being a religion, but it's a relationship with God. A relationship is about interaction. A relationship is about bringing pleasure. A relationship is about smiling. A relationship is about laughing. A relationship is about interacting and talking and communicating and all of that. How much of that is a feature and a hallmark of our relationship with God, and how much of it is just going through the motions? And it's that relationship that brings pleasure to the heart of God, and it's that absence of that relationship that brings him grief. Because the reason that he did what he did, when you think of what Jesus went through, and how he suffered, and how he died, the reason that he went to that extent was because he loves us, and because he wants a relationship with us, and because he wants that fellowship with us, and because he wants that interaction, and because he wants to know us, not because he wants us to just sit back and try and keep our nose clean and, and hope to get to heaven at the end of it all. That's, that's a poor reflection of the quality of the relationship that God has called us to. And so the question that we ask when it comes to, uh, not grieving and not quenching the Holy Spirit is, "How can I actually make the most of my privileged relationship with him? How can I make the most of what God has made possible for me in my life?" And if we don't do that, then we can bring grief to the heart of God, and we can bring grief to the Holy Spirit. It's really important that we engage. Like we said before, in so many areas in life, there's no neutral ground. We have to actually ask ourselves, "How do we go as far as we possibly can in that relationship with him?" Because, as I've said before, a Christian life can go on perfectly well in form and function without the Holy Spirit, and without any sense of knowing what it takes to please him. He can withdraw from us and we might not even know. When we take time to ask the question, "Is God here?" You know, that, that picture of God as, as a dove, the Holy Spirit as a dove settling on his people, and how easy it is for a dove to flutter away and for us not to be aware. Last week, I saw a video on YouTube. I don't know if you follow this guy. Well, not follow him because he's not really a very positive person to follow, but there's a guy called Professor Richard Dawkins who's an atheist, who's a, like a really, uh, what's the word, like a militant atheist. He really, his atheism is his evangelism. He really wants to make sure that people don't believe in God. And uh, he had a friend or has a friend who was a colleague of his in his atheism, a lady called Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and she uh, has actually recently become a Christian. [congregation murmurs, someone says "Hallelujah"] And uh, and so the two of them are having a debate and a conversation on YouTube. It's really interesting if you look it up. And uh, and you know, and he was saying, "You know, surely you don't believe in Jesus rose from the dead." And uh, she was saying, "Well, I choose to believe that. Yes, I do believe that." And uh, and he was saying, "You know, the problem with Christianity is..." (He knows everything about everything. He's a professor.) "The problem with Christianity is, it's obsessed with sin." And she said, "Well, you might say that," she said, "but I prefer to see that it's obsessed with love." And as I thought about that, and I listened to, I thought, actually, it's not just like The Beatles, you know, "All you need is love." It's all very, it's all love, love, love, love is all you need. But what she's saying is that, yes, there, there's sin, but Jesus has done away with sin. Jesus has done away with its power, and he's opened the doors of heaven to all who will believe. And the Holy Spirit, who used to be hidden away in the temple behind a big curtain, now lives in the hearts of men and women. And so there's that opportunity that we have. And so when he says it's obsessed with sin, actually, no. Sin was there, sin was the barrier, sin was the, was the issue, sin was the thing that kept us from God, but now sin, the power of sin, is broken. Broken by the cross of Jesus. That's why Jesus, when he hung on the cross, in all that pain and all that agony, the last thing he said was to cry, "It is finished!" It's finished. Sin is finished. So, Christianity is not obsessed with sin. Christianity breaks the power of sin. Christianity opens the door to life. Christianity opens the possibility of life. And sometimes it's not Christianity or or Jesus that's obsessed with sin, it's Christians that are obsessed with sin. We are obsessed with, you know, I'm not saying sin is not important, but sin is dealt with. Sin can be put aside. In the, in the second, the second verse after the one I read, it says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven 1you." What's he saying there? Is get rid of it. Just put it aside. Just don't live in that anymore. Why? Because we have the power to walk away from that because Jesus has declared, "It is finished!" And so there is no obsession with sin. There should be an obsession with love, with life, and with hope. And so the question is not, "Are we good enough for heaven?" I remember somebody, years and years and years ago, in one of the first services I was ever involved in, and one of the preachers was doing this interactive thing, and he was asking people, you know, "Are you, are you confident of your future, of your eternal future?" And one of these chaps called, uh, George, he said, "Well, I, I jolly well hope so." "I hope to, I hope to, I hope that everything will be all right in the end." He said, "You, you've missed it." He was very bold preacher. "You've missed the point. You've missed the point that God has given you that opportunity for life." And the question is, "How are we responding?" Our response to it, this is what gets back to our subject of grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit, our response to his grace, our response to his power, our response to his gospel and the open door that he's given us into his presence is the key to whether we bring pleasure to the heart of God or we bring grief. Our sin is not so much the issue. Grieving and quenching the Spirit is not so much about bad things that we do. We've got this whole list of, like the, gets dangerously close to Father Christmas, doesn't it? And the naughty and nice list. We've got a, a naughty list. "Well, you've got all of this stuff and all of these things against you, and uh, and these things have grieved the Holy Spirit." Well, in actual fact, it's not about the bad things that we do, but much more about the good things that we don't do and the opportunities for life that we don't step into. Because where there is sin, there is a solution. If we sin, we should confess our sin, and he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's the key. If you sin, confess it. Get rid of it. Put it aside. Put it away. And don't live in that anymore. Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, "Go and sin no more." That was the, that was the prescription. It wasn't, "Now you need to go through this, and you need to go through these hoops and, and pay for this, pay this penalty," or whatever. He just said, "Go, and sin no more. According to the law, you should have been stoned, but now there's a new covenant in action. Go and sin no more. Be free." And so we confess our sins, knowing he's faithful and just to, to, to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so there's everything that can be done about sin. If there's sin in your life today, put it aside. Repent of it. Get it out. Walk away from it. The power is there for you to do that. That's the opportunity that we have. But the harder thing to deal with is our unwillingness to enter into all that God has for us. Remember, somebody bringing a prophetic word saying, God saying, "I can, I can deal with your sin, I have no problem with that. I can deal with that because the, the, the cross is there, but what I can't deal with is your unbelief. What I can't deal with is your unwillingness to trust me. What I can't deal with are the things that are now still in your hands to do. I've dealt with your sin. What about your faith? What about your life?" And it's our response to God that impacts his heart, that brings him pleasure or grief. That when we stand before him, will it be the list that he's got? I saw a funny meme the other day of somebody of the, these people sat looking miserable on the steps and they said, "We're just waiting for Jesus to go through our WhatsApp feed before he lets us in." [laughter] You know, we think, is, is it our WhatsApp feed that's going to condemn us? Is it our, is it our internet search history? Is it whatever? All of those things. All those things, if they are things that are wrong, deal with it. Deal with it by the power of the, of the, of the cross. But it's not primarily those things that God's interested in because he has dealt with sin. He hasn't brought us to a point where we need to bring one sacrifice after another in order to bring ourselves to righteousness. There is one sacrifice that stands for all, for all time, and now the, the new and living way has been opened up into his presence. So that's the, that's the thing. Now the question is, what are we going to do with that? The things we have to take care of. Number one: Faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith, it's impossible to please God." Impossible. Think about that. Let that sink in. There is a difference between labeling ourselves as a Christian and living a life of faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. You can do all sorts of stuff to try and please God. You can, you can give wonderful offerings, you can pray wonderful prayers, you can, you can, you can help old people across the road. You can do anything, but without faith, it's impossible to please him. I've been amazed recently looking back over life. I don't know if, it's not like life flashing before me, I don't take it too seriously. But, you know, looking back over so many years, looking over the faithfulness of God. And we sing those songs, "All my life, you have been faithful. All my life, you have been so, so good." Used to sing when I was young, when I was very young, a young Christian, they used to sing that Ishmael song, "Father God, I wonder how I managed to exist without the knowledge of your parenthood." And I used to think, I don't know what that means, really. You know, it's like, yeah, because I, because I had no experience. Now, I can say, yeah, I do wonder how I managed to exist without the knowledge of your parenthood and your loving care. But seeing stuff, seeing the faithfulness of God doesn't equal faith. Even when we are faithless, God is faithful. And so sometimes seeing the faithfulness of God over so many years and so many miracles of kindness and love and grace and provision, brings me a little bit of regret because I know that I didn't have anything like the faith that he's worthy of. But he still did it. And I'm still worrying about things now that God proved to me that he could take care of 25 years ago. There are things like the, you know, he feeds the 5,000, and then the next day, they meet another crowd, and they say, "Where are we going to feed, where are we going to get the food to feed these people from?" It's like, it just goes from one thing to another. And I am aware that I, God has been so faithful to me over so many years, and yet some of the basic lessons of faith I still struggle with. And I'm sure you're in the same boat there as I expose myself here and, uh, my lack of faith. Because we struggle with faith. But it's faith that brings pleasure to the heart of God. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Without faith that says, "Actually, I believe you, God." Not, "I believe you, but I understand the realities," or, "I believe you, God, but, you know, there's this and that problem to take into consideration." "I believe you, Lord. I believe you." Not necessarily for a particular outcome, because that, that sort of pins everything on. But we just believe God. Believe God in what he's able to do. Believe God that he will see us through. Believe God that we will not, we will not crash and burn. Believe God that he will do what he says he will do, and we will accomplish what he says he will accomplish. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, and that attitude pleases God. And the opposite grieves him. Unbelief grieves him. When we don't actually trust him, when we don't put out, when we don't try to put our faith and our, our confidence in him, then that grieves his heart and it grieves his Spirit. Secondly: Love. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35. "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." It's so easy to bypass things that are actually so close to the Father's heart, to justify discord, hatred, and division in the name of Jesus. We feel if we're doctrinally correct, nothing else matters, does it? If we've, if we've got the absolute truth, then everybody else can just do one! Because we are God's soldiers, and we've got his, we've got his truth. And it doesn't really, and yet, meanwhile, God is saying, "Love one another." It's more important to love one another than to win an argument. That's really tough, because we love to win arguments. Believing we are God's favored ones. Everybody else is numpties, but we are God's favored ones. Just like his disciples. You know, these people, they're all pre- He said, "Well, if they're not, if they're not against us, then they're for us." Fight for love, fight for unity, value one another even more than we value ourselves. And you know what? That brings pleasure to the heart of God. Where there is unity, God commands a blessing. Where there is disunity, the opposite must be true. It grieves the heart of God. It pains his heart. He suffers with it because when his people are divided, when his people don't love one another, when his people don't care for one another, when his people don't value one another, when they don't see that he loves each and every one, the person that you are at odds with, he loves as much as he loves you, because he made, he made them in his image as much as he made you in his image. Love brings pleasure to the heart of God, and division and disunity grieves the Holy Spirit. Obedience. In 1 Samuel, King Saul was given the task of completely destroying the Amalekites. This is where our sort of ancient biblical history and modern day sort of cross over, and we think, "Oh, these, all these, uh, you know, battles and fights are fairly gruesome." But King Saul was given the task of completely destroying the Amalekites. He was told to destroy them and everything that they owned. All the cattle, the sheep, everything had to be gone. And so he said, "I'll do it," and he went. Except, they, he kept the best sheep, and he kept the best goats, and he kept the best cattle. And the Bible says they only destroyed that which didn't have any value, didn't have any worth. And when the prophet Samuel, who'd been told by the Lord what, what Saul had actually done, went to find him the next day, he was told that Saul was out building a monument to himself because of all that he'd achieved in the name of the Lord. And he'd, he'd destroyed the Amalekites. So he built this monument. And when Samuel turned up to challenge him, Saul had no idea that he, what was about to happen. And he went out, he said, "The Lord bless you, Samuel. We've carried out everything. We've done everything that the Lord commanded us to do. I've carried out the Lord's command." And then there's a some of the most devastating words in the Bible, I find it really challenging and convicting. Samuel said to him, "Then what is this bleating of sheep that I hear?" And Saul says, "Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, we did keep the best of the animals, but we're going to offer them to the Lord as a sacrifice. Don't worry, everything's good." He's made up his own theology. Where God said, "Destroy everything, get rid of everything, I don't want everything, be obedient to me." He said, "Actually, well, I know what we'll do. We'll take some of them and we'll make you an offering. You'll like that." And then Samuel delivered this devastating judgment. He said to him, "To obey is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than the fat of rams. Because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you as king." So self-confidence in ourselves is not enough. We have to be attentive to exactly what God wants of us if we're going to avoid grieving him. Saul was rejected as king because he didn't have an interest in being obedient to the heart of God. He only had an interest in doing his thing. And yet he dressed it all up. "We're going to make sacrifices. We've done the, we've done everything the Lord said." And we might have thought, "Yeah, good man." But the Holy Spirit was not pleased. Thankfulness. "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:18. "And he who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me." Psalm 50:23. Some of them, these things are so simple, and yet so hard. A grateful heart pleases God. An ungrateful heart grieves the heart of God. Gratitude and compassion bring him pleasure. It's so easy to accept the grace of God and never think to say, "Thank you." Like the ten lepers that were all healed and only one of them went back to say, "Thank you." There is power in gratitude. Not only power in gratitude, but it, it opens the door to our relationship with God. That's the thing that makes him smile. That's the, that's the thing that he loves when we actually look at our lives, and instead of complaining, instead of moaning on about it, we actually say, "Actually, Lord, I thank you. I thank you for what the life you've given me. I thank you for the breath that I take. I thank you for the way that you've cared for me. I thank you, Lord, and I praise you." And that brings him pleasure. Perseverance in faith. "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest." Galatians 6:9. "Well done, good and faithful servant." Matthew 25:21. Much of our blessing in the future tracks back to our attitude here today, in what we and how we look at things. When God says, "Well done, good and faithful servant," at the end of all things, it is at the end of all things. It's after we've gone through everything. It's not that first time we run up to the front of the church with our arms in the air and tears running down our face, and we say, "I love you, Jesus," and he says, "Well done." He says, "Well done," after you've been through all the ups and downs, all the challenges, all the issues, all the stress, all the things that would try and attack your faith and undermine your faith, all the things that you've had to fight through and battle through. At the end of all that comes the "Well done, good and faithful servant." How are we going to respond? Jesus told Peter about all that he was going to suffer, and how he was going to die, and he was, uh, he didn't say he would save him from it. But one thing he said is, "I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith won't fail." Faith is the one commodity we can take with us from this life. Nothing else will make that journey with us. "I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith won't fail." What a prayer, what a powerful prayer for Jesus to, to be by the side of the Father saying, "I pray for Peter. I pray for MCF. I pray for those people that their faith will not fail." That we, that through our perseverance in faith, we will bring pleasure to the heart of God. One of the things that afflicts the church the world over, and we've come across it in Zambia, is a sort of a twisted sort of prosperity gospel. We know God wants to bless his people, but there's this sort of prosperity that says, you know, "If you've got, if you've got a car, if you've got a big house, if you eat meat every day, you know, you are truly blessed of God." And uh, and I remember one of the bold preachers there saying, you know, "When, when Jesus is praying for us, he's praying that our faith won't fail. He's not praying for a new Mercedes." He's not praying that you'll get everything that you've ever dreamed of. He's not Father Christmas, as I said earlier on. But he is praying that through it all, through everything that you walk through, your faith will not fail. 1 Peter 1:6-7: "So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold. Though your faith is far more precious than mere gold, so when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to2 the world." And so this life of bringing pleasure to the heart of God, not grieving, not, not, not stressing the Spirit, if you like, is, is all about how we live, about what we do with the wonderful gift that's been given to us, the opportunity that we have, the possibility to grow in faith, the possibility to be thankful, the possibility to persevere, the possibility to love one another against all the odds. All of those things are the things that when God looks on his people, they cause him to smile. Not just that people have ticked and said, "Yes, I believe in Jesus, so I'm going, I've got my ticket to heaven," but it's about how we live our life in the here and now and in the in-between. And so the question is, where do we stand today? Are we resting on the fact that we wear a Christian badge, or are we active in seeking a life that pleases God?

🕊️ Sermon Summary: Transformed by the Spirit of God This week, we were blessed to hear from our speaker, Erica Lugg, as she continued our series on "Life in the Spirit" with a powerful message titled "Transformed by the Spirit of God." Erica's message focused on the profound promise of transformation found in 2 Corinthians 3:16-18. Key Scripture and Context The message centred on 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 (NIV): "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all who with unveiled faces, when we contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."  Erica first set the scene by explaining that the "veil" Paul refers to is no longer needed because of Jesus' sacrifice. The barrier that once separated people from God's glory, as with Moses' veiled face in Exodus 34, is now removed for all who turn to the Lord. This means everyone can freely come into God's presence and encounter His glory. Understanding Transformation Erica explored the question: What does it mean to be transformed? More than "Change": The Greek word used is metamorpho, the root of metamorphosis. This is far deeper than simply "changing clothes" or improving our appearance. The Butterfly Analogy: Transformation is likened to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The caterpillar doesn't just get "wings"—it dissolves into an unrecognisable form where every single cell is broken down and reformed. A New Creation: God's vision is not for us to be a "better version of ourselves" (a "caterpillar with wings") but a completely brand new creation. This transformative work is from the inside out and is done by the Holy Spirit. Why Does God Transform Us? God transforms us because He is restoring His original image in us. The Original Image: Mankind was made in the image of God to walk with Him in a relationship characterised by natural joy, peace, and freedom from shame and sin. The Broken Image: Sin broke that image, like "hot tar" thrown on the relationship, shattering the natural flow of joy and peace. Restoration, Not Improvement: The Spirit is not "improving" us but restoring, reforming, or reborning the image of Jesus in us, back to how it was meant to be. Power vs. Self-Help: This transformation is God's power at work, not "costume Christianity" or self-help. Information is not transformation. The world offers tips, but the Spirit offers transformation and freedom. The Process of Transformation Erica used the moving story of Little Ted, Liz Patton's rescue dog, to illustrate the nature of the Holy Spirit's work. It's a Process, Not a Moment: Erica's initial idea to "fix" the anxious and fearful dog in one moment by introducing him to another gentle dog was a disaster. The true transformation began only through faithful, consistent love, security, and boundaries over two years. Steady, Patient Work: The Holy Spirit's work is not a "one-time fix" or an "abracadabra" moment. It is a steady, patient transformation from the inside out. Celebrating All Progress: We are changed from "one degree of glory to another". We must celebrate the small degrees of change, as they are still the work of the Holy Spirit. Our Role: Contemplating His Glory While the Spirit sustains and completes the work, we have a role to play: Contemplate, Behold, Look Upon: The scripture says, "those who contemplate, behold, look upon, they're the ones being transformed". Renewal of the Mind: Romans 12:2 says, "be transformed by the renewal of your mind". There is no neutral ground; we are either conforming to the pattern of the world or being transformed by the Spirit. Mindsets to Surrender: We need to discern the "lean" or "posture" of our minds. Do we lean towards: Fear instead of Trust?  Grumbling instead of Gratitude?  Pride instead of Humility?  Worry instead of Worship?  Positioning Ourselves: We position ourselves for transformation by beholding or contemplating Jesus, allowing His truth to renew our minds. Erica concluded by encouraging us to listen to the words of our own hearts to discern our mind's "slant" and to surrender those worldly mindsets to God, committing to be transformed to be like Jesus. Transcript We pray. Amen. Good morning, everybody. Really good to see you all. We're continuing in our theme. My microphone is at the hem of my jumper. There's always a drama with this when I'm speaking, isn't there? There's always something I haven't done. There we go. Is that better? Great, okay. Good morning, everybody. Great. It's good to see you all again. We're following our series on being in life in the Spirit. We've looked at what it means to be led by the Spirit, the fruits of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, and there'll be more of that coming as we go on in the next few weeks. But the title of my message this morning is Transformed by the Spirit of God. And we're going to be looking at 2 Corinthians 3, verses 16 to 18, if you've got your Bibles on you, or this is a great opportunity to get out your phone, and you could even pretend to be on games. And people will think you're reading the Bible. Except the Holy Spirit sees, you know. He sees everything. Just saying. So 2 Corinthians 3, verses 16 to 18, and I'm going to be using the NIV version. Karen mentioned last week about using different versions of the Bible, which I like doing, but the NIV uses a word here that I think is really important. Now, before I come to reading that scripture, I want to kind of set the scene a little bit, because we've kind of arrived at the end of, or in the middle of, Paul's thoughts to the church in Corinth. And if you want to know more about the church in Corinth, you can look that up in Acts chapter 18. So they were a vibrant church, a passionate church, but also they were a bit of an immature church. And although they loved Jesus, they were easily swayed by all the different snazzy teachings that were coming up. And so what Paul is doing is establishing a foundation, and that's where we come to. And before we get to our verse this morning, Paul is reminding the people about an encounter with God that Moses had back in Exodus 34. So those of you that will remember where Moses fits into the picture, if you don't, Exodus 34 and the chapters before will fit you in. But Moses goes up Mount Sinai, he has this incredible encounter with God, separate to the people that he's leading, and God's glory shone so brightly on him that as he comes down from Mount Sinai, that glory is radiated all over his face. And there is this veil that covers the glory of God to protect the people from the shine, but also so that the people couldn't see the glory of God fading, because that's what happened. And what Paul is saying before we come to our scripture is that that veil, that protection isn't needed anymore. That with Jesus, there isn't an elite bunch of people that can encounter God, and those that weren't elite that just got the ends of everything, but all of us, we can come freely into the presence of God and encounter his glory freely because of the sacrifice of Jesus. That when we turn to Jesus, he removes everything that blocks us from truly seeing him, and that's the work of the Holy Spirit. With me so far? Okay. Thank you, Cornelius. I'm looking out for your amens there, the rest of you. Okay. So, 2 Corinthians 3, 16 to 18 says this. Paul is saying to the people, but whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. What's the criteria? Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. This thing that separates, this barrier. Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Now, you can read it the other way on that says if the Spirit of the Lord is not involved, whatever we are experiencing is not freedom. Looks like freedom, masquerades of freedom, but where the Spirit of the Lord is, that is where there is true freedom. Good so far? Good. And we all who with unveiled faces, these are the people that have turned to the Lord. Nick, if I could have a glass of water, that would be really good. Thank you. We all who with unveiled faces, when we contemplate the Lord's glory, so contemplate means to behold, to look upon, to think upon, to be at the presence of, are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Verse 16 is the promise. Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. So if you have given your heart to Jesus, and you have opened your life to him, God removes the veil, that barrier is taken away, which means we have the opportunity not only to see God, to encounter his glory, but for that glory then to be reflected out of us to the people around. Which is great news. Paul says, we all can see and reflect the Lord's glory. This is not just for spiritual elite, this is for all of us. And then he goes on to say, the Lord is the Spirit. And I just want to... Is this yours, Roland? Yeah. It's in my space. I nearly drank it. Is there vodka in there? Just checking. The Lord is the Spirit. It's important to remember that the Holy Spirit is not an it, or a force, or a vibe, or a thing, or an emotion, or a tingle down the spine, or a moment in the church service. The Lord is the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is God himself in our presence, here with us today. He's a person. So we all, who with unveiled faces, contemplate or look upon the Lord's glory, we are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory. And that is the verse that I want us to kind of look at today. And there are four questions that I want us to ask. I want us to ask what it means to be transformed. I want us to ask the question, why are we being transformed? How does it work? And when does it happen? And then, I also want to ask the question, what does that mean for me tomorrow morning, Monday morning, at work, Tuesday morning, in the middle of all the things that I'm going through? What does this scripture mean for me? And how do I apply it to my life? So, some translations, we're going to ask the question, what does it mean to be transformed? Some translations use the word changed. We are being changed. But I feel that that is really a very weak word. Because we change clothes all the time, don't we? We change appearance all the time. Cut our hair, grow our hair, dye our hair. Some of you haven't got any hair. That's okay. But we change things all the time. I'm a different person to how I was when I was a lot younger. There's a lot about change that I can do myself. But the scripture here is talking about transformation, which is a deeper thing. In fact, the Greek word is the word metamorpho, which is the word that Paul uses in this translation, which is where we get the word metamorphosis. Is that how you pronounce it? Metamorphosis. When you say that word, what does it remind you of? Caterpillar and butterflies. Okay. Thank you very much because that's in the notes. Ten points for Jules over there. It's the same word that we use to describe what happens to a caterpillar. Now, a caterpillar starts small. It crawls around on its belly on the ground. It is incredibly limited. It has a very limited lifespan. And then there comes a moment when it spins a cocoon and then something incredible happens inside the cocoon. Any of you that have done biology before, what happens inside that cocoon to that caterpillar? It dissolves. It does what? It dissolves. It dissolves. It mulches down into an unrecognisable blob of something. It's good, isn't it? A blob of something. Very technical. Every single cell changes. Thank you. Every single cell changes. It's the same word. It's the same word in here, the transformation. And it becomes unrecognisable. And in the process of the cocoon, where every single cell is broken down, something is then reformed or reborn, and out comes... Thank you. Out of the cocoon comes a butterfly. It doesn't come and become a caterpillar with wings. Because that's what change does, isn't it? When we change ourselves, we become caterpillars with wings. But what God is speaking about here is that the old has gone, the shape of the caterpillar, all of that is gone. And out of this cocoon is reborn something completely brand new because every single cell has been broken down. And out comes this thing that we call a butterfly. And which is the thing that we ooh and ah at when we see? Do we ooh and ah at the caterpillar or do we ooh and ah at the butterfly? It's the butterfly. And it somehow becomes from this grovelling on the ground kind of creature to this beautiful, unlimited, expansive life of freedom that this butterfly has. I remember once... Was it you or was it Aidan? We went to... Oh, no. When I was a TA in a school, went to the butterfly farm in Cleethorpe. Have you ever been in there? And we walked into the butterfly house and a butterfly landed on... His name was Charlie, actually. A little boy's Charlie's head. And one of the kids said, Oh, look, Charlie, there's a butterfly on your head. And he went... That's just a bit of an aside. It's nothing to do with the scripture. No one's going to start whacking you on the head or anything like that. It's just a... Okay. So, and that's the Holy Spirit work in us. When we turn to Jesus, he begins to transform us from the inside out. He breaks down the cells. He mulches us into something, bit by bit, so that out of it comes this new creation. That's what it means to be reborn. God's vision is not that we become better versions of ourselves. I have to admit that I've used that in some of my evangelistic spiel and said, you know, what God wants to do is to make you kind of the best version of yourself. God knows. He's breaking everything down and transforming us completely, not into caterpillars with wings, but into butterflies. Isn't that amazing? Okay. So that's the first question. That's what it means to be transformed. We are not being edited or adjusted or tweaked or... improved. We are being changed. We are being transformed from one degree of glory to another. So why does God want to transform us? And to answer that question, which is point number two, we have to go back to the beginning. In the beginning, God made mankind in his own image. No other creature on the face of the earth is made in the image of God. No other creature. We are completely different to the rest of God's creation. We were made in the image of God. And you have that wonderful picture of God walking in the garden with his creation, those that were made in the image of him. And in that relationship, because of that uniqueness of it, it was shame-free and blame-free and sin-free and peace and joy were natural. Can you imagine a world where peace and joy comes naturally to us? Put your hands up this morning if peace and joy flow naturally out of you all the time. David, I'm going to ask Jen. I'm going to ask Jen. She's my friend. She'll tell me. But imagine that, where peace and joy flow naturally. That's what the relationship used to be like. And that is because we were made in the image of our creator. So there was that natural sense of relationship. and then we all know the story that a lie was told and a lie was believed and humanity, we weren't content to be like God. We wanted to be God himself and so all of that. And basically, what happened in that moment, it was as if somebody came along with hot tar and threw it up against that beautiful relationship, up against that image of God that was in us. And then that relationship, the natural flow of joy and peace, shame free, sin free, all of that was destroyed. And that is because the image of God in us became broken and damaged. Still with me? Okay. And that natural relationship was shattered and separation came. Now, before Adam and Eve ever knew how to even ask for forgiveness or ask for a way back, we already see God beginning his restoration process, process, don't you? And that's why you can see Jesus all the way through the Old Testament. So, we were made to bear God's image but sin covered the image with self and when the spirit comes along to transform us, he is not improving us, he is restoring or reforming or reborning the image of Jesus in us that was there right back at the beginning of time. because he's not changed his mind, he's actually saying I want it back the way it was, I want you to know, I want you to experience what it means to live in the natural place of joy and peace and relationship with God. Ezekiel 36, 26 says this, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you and that's the difference between costume Christianity and spirit transformation because we all can wear costumes can't we? We all do wear costumes. I know that it's a gift that I've learnt over many years how to put a costume on but that's the difference between costume Christianity and spirit transformation. We can change our image, what we look like on the outside but only God can transform the identity within us and I don't want to live from a place of costume Christianity, I want to know day by day what it means to live the identity of Christ, Jesus in me, Christ in me, the hope of glory. That's why we need power. Not self-help or how to be a better person podcast. Those things are good because they help us to manage habits but they can't make us new. They polish the outside but only the Holy Spirit can change the inside of who we are. In fact, we can't change the inside of who we are and we're arrogant if we think we can somehow change the core of who we are. You can read every book and still feel stuck because information is not transformation. That's why we need power. The world offers tips but the Spirit offers transformation. The world will give us advice but God is the only one that gives us power and the only one that gives us freedom through the Holy Spirit. Now I want to tell you a story this morning about a dog. If I could have his picture up here. Oh, I knew that would get you. Do you know who he is? Little Ted. His name is Little Ted. So I kind of want to use this story. He's really had a huge impact on me. This story to try and give us a bit of an idea of what I mean. So all of you know Liz Patton. Yes. So this is Liz Patton's dog. And by the way I have asked permission to put him up on screen this morning. He's allowed to be streamed by the way. It's all right. We've got permission. Now Little Ted was a rescue dog until about two years ago. And two years ago I had the privilege of going to the rescue center to meet him. And Liz and I took him out for a walk and immediately could see that he was an incredibly anxious and fearful dog. You could tell from his behavior. And also really reactive to other dogs. Really I've never seen anything quite like him and his response. And all you could imagine was what has he experienced in his little life to have got to the stage where he was such a distressed and sad to say trauma. So sad. Is that the word? Trauma? I can't. And when we went to the shelter and inquired about him, Liz obviously had to go away and make up her mind. And so she said to the owner of the shelter, do you mind if I let you know on Friday? I think this was probably Wednesday. And the woman said, oh don't worry about it, let me know any time because nobody wants him, he'll still be here. I know, doesn't it pull on your heart strings? And I didn't say a word to Liz, I thought I can't say anything, I can't even look at her and went to where I thought because my heart was already like well I can't leave him behind. Anyway, within just a few hours Liz had decided that she was going to have him and I don't know that whether or not at the very beginning of having him she thought maybe it had been a mistake because he was incredibly, incredibly difficult dog because of what he'd gone through. Anyway, I had this idea, I said I know what will help him and because he's reactive to other dogs and he's scared of other dogs, I'm going to introduce him to Max. Oh. He died in January. Oh. Max is like a big baluba bear, just a real big therapy dog, everybody loved him, in fact when he died in January the condolences I received were just, everybody loved Max and I thought I know what I'll do, I'm going to invite Liz and little Ted over and we're going to introduce little Ted to Max and there's going to be this huge, just like this amazing transformation as little Ted comes into contact with Max. What a brilliant idea you've had Erica and Liz was saying to me all the time, do you think it will work? And I'm going, absolutely it will work. First of all it's my idea and my ideas generally work, isn't that right Nick? Yeah. And also we're talking about Max here, I mean, and she said to me, are you sure? And all the way in the car, yeah, yeah, I'm absolutely sure. So we pulled up to the house and little Ted started barking in response to Max and then we put them out in the garden together and guess what? It was a disaster. It was an absolute disaster. It was utter chaos. With this gentle giant here ending up with little Ted's head in his mouth. And it was not friendly. And I think the only reason that Max didn't come out without any marks is because little Ted has got no teeth. But it was absolute chaos. Now I have thought about this a lot. That actually although it was kindly motivated, it was incredibly arrogant of me to think that a dog that had been through everything that little Ted had could be fixed in a moment by one of my bright ideas. Now you all know I'm a bit of a fixer. That's how I work. I like to fix. And if I can't fix, I get frustrated. Now I want you to move on two years. And Isla knows this. Two years on little Ted has been at Liz's and he's not perfect. but he's a completely different dog. And it wasn't Max that did it. It was Liz who took the long view. Faithful, consistent love, discipline, security, acceptance, boundaries, and the determination that said, and I admire her for it, she said, no matter what, you are my dog. And that has been a faithful commitment over two years. What I thought I could fix in a moment, Liz has with her faithful commitment to this dog over two years begun and is continuing a transforming work in this dog. Now he's not perfect but I tell you what, he's a million miles better than he was. And I just want to encourage you because that's what the Holy Spirit does in us. He is working Jesus in me. And it's not a one-time fix. I didn't say the sinner's prayer and suddenly all the issues that I deal with or all the issues that are as a result of my broken character, they're not dealt with in a way abracadabra but a steady, patient transformation from the inside out and out working of the Holy Spirit in me. Yes, Amen. I looked back as part of this message, I looked back and saw what God has been doing. So he goes on to say it's changed from one degree of glory to another. I want to encourage you that small degrees are still a work of the Holy Spirit. We celebrate the big jumps, don't we? Wow, look how much that person has changed. But then we often look at ourselves and yeah, but look at me, I'm really rubbish at this or what is God doing? Celebrate the small things that the Holy Spirit is doing in you and then don't despise the small things that the Holy Spirit is doing in someone else. Are you still with me? Okay, so it's the power of the Holy Spirit, aware of time. When does transformation happen? When? Well, it starts the moment the veil is removed, the moment we surrender to God. In fact, that in itself is a work of the Holy Spirit. To be able to see is a work of the Holy Spirit. But then the Bible goes on to say that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. There's the promise, he will do it. Completion, there's the fulfilment. When we stand before Jesus on that day, we will be like him in entirety. But in the process, we are being changed. The Spirit began it, he sustains it, and he completes it. Good with that. So now we know what, and we know why, and we know how, and we will know when. What does that mean? If the Spirit does it all, does that just mean we get to sit around and go, Holy Spirit, change me? No, we don't. The Bible says in that scripture, it says, those who contemplate, behold, look upon, they're the ones being transformed. In Romans 12, 2, it says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the of your mind. Paul is not talking about gaining more information. He's not saying we should all go home and read a concordance. Information is not transformation. But we do all have mindsets. We all lean towards something, and the Bible says either we are conforming to the world or we are being transformed. There is no neutral ground. So either we are leaning into the spirit and we are allowing him to change us, or we can have a lean into things of the world. And he's talking about mindsets. And so when we are thinking about the renewal of our minds, we are thinking about what position has my mind taken? What is the posture or the lean or the attitude of my mind? If it leans towards the things of the world, we will by nature be conformed to the patterns of the world. But if we, with unfilled faces, contemplate his glory, lean into the spirit, then he is faithful to begin that work within us. Still with me? Minds are never neutral. Sometimes they lean our minds towards fear or self-reliance or pride or negativity or shame. That's just some. That's the pattern of the world. But when the Holy Spirit renews our mind, he wants to straighten our lean so that we lean into him. So instead of fear, we begin to trust. I'm learning that a lot when I have one of my children on tracker. They've allowed me to have them on tracker. But when that little green thing stops flashing and it's three o'clock in the morning and and they're no longer, you know what I'm talking about, right? They're no longer live and you, last time they were connected to the internet was 20 minutes ago and it's three o'clock in the morning and they're in the middle of Luton coming out of the airport walking. My mind in the middle of the night goes down the road of fear. As natural as that. And I'm learning, last night, learning to drag it back. And say, I trust you, God. I trust you. My mind has a lean towards fear. My mind can have a lean towards grumbling if I'm not careful. But the Holy Spirit wants to lean me into an attitude of gratitude. As you can see with Max, my mind has a lean towards pride instead of humility, thinking I could fix something. It can lean towards despair instead of hope. Or rebellion instead of obedience. Or criticism instead of compassion or worry instead of worship. Am I the only person in this room? Yeah, let's be honest here. Come on. Renewal isn't about knowing more, but it is learning to think differently. And that's what the Bible says. So, we need to position ourselves. We position ourselves to contemplate him, to think about him, to look over him, to have our minds changed by his truth, and allow him to renew our minds in order that the transforming work of the Holy Spirit can continue freely. I'm going to ask the musicians if you could come back for me. Please. How do you know if your mind is leaning in the right direction? And let's say, just begin to play something. I'm going to ask us to respond. Because maybe you've realised this morning that you do have a slant towards something of a worldly pattern of thinking, a mindset, an attitude. Maybe your mind automatically goes towards fear or control. My mind goes towards control or pride or worry. And the way I think about it is, or the way I discern it in my own life is to listen to the words that I use. Because you know that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And when we speak, not when we speak to our friends and we're putting on a costume, but when we speak in the privacy of our own hearts, what are the words that we use? Because that will tell us which way we are slanted. Do I talk about Jesus but really and truly I trust myself? Or maybe you can tell because peace is not the norm for you, it's the exception. We've been called to a life of peace and part of the transformation of our minds and of our lives is to recognise that we are completely safe in him. That's the truth. Maybe we go down the road of controlling everything and thinking if it's hard it mustn't be God or I need to somehow control it in order for it to work out well. You know, God is great and all that but he really needs my help. Maybe you just feel exhausted but you feel you can't stop pretending or performing. Could be an indicator of where our hearts and our minds are leaning. It might be that you know your heart is sharp about something or someone but you know that Jesus' heart is soft. well there immediately is a what do they call a disparity. It's forming him, Jesus in us. Or maybe it's living in fear so more influenced by the headlines than by scripture. Or maybe faith is tired and hope feels naive. Well it's all very well to have faith but we need to be people that live in the real world. Have you heard that before? Or maybe it's just really simply I know that Jesus, yeah he's part of my life but he's not really the centre. Those things lean us into conforming to the patterns, the mindsets, the postures of the world. And the way we recentre and lean into Jesus is by beholding or contemplating him. So I just wonder if we could stand together. Maybe we need to surrender some of these things to God and actually name them for what they are. I have recognized, and I'm being really open here today, I have recognized how easy it is for me to live in a place of fear. Not about everything, but about certain things. I live in a place of fear and see how my mind goes down that road. It's just like a light switch, it goes down that road. And I know that I have to keep bringing that to God and surrendering it to Him and saying, I trust you. And it might be that's where you're at today and you just know, you know that there's a lean and there's an imbalance. We're leaning into the logic or the understanding or the wise words of the world. Lord, as we worship, I would just love for us to respond together. Holy Spirit, thank you for the transforming work of your power within me. Thank you that you are faithful to complete that which you've started. But our Father, I also know that I have a role to play in all of this. Forgive me for believing the lies of the enemy. Forgive me for my prideful heart that thinks that somehow I can fix things. And if you feel that the Holy Spirit's been pointing something in your heart or highlighting something, just we've got a few minutes. Let's come down to the front and join me here. Let's just pray together. As we surrender our lives, Holy Spirit, we want to be transformed to be like Jesus. I don't want mindsets that don't look like Jesus in my life. I don't want that. I don't want to proclaim freedom and Jesus with my mouth and yet live in bondage in my heart because of something that I'm scared to let go of. If the Holy Spirit's been speaking to you, come and join me as we worship together.

🕊️ Sermon Summary: Transformed by the Spirit of God This week, we were blessed to hear from our speaker, Erica Lugg, as she continued our series on "Life in the Spirit" with a powerful message titled "Transformed by the Spirit of God." Erica's message focused on the profound promise of transformation found in 2 Corinthians 3:16-18. Key Scripture and Context The message centred on 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 (NIV): "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all who with unveiled faces, when we contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."  Erica first set the scene by explaining that the "veil" Paul refers to is no longer needed because of Jesus' sacrifice. The barrier that once separated people from God's glory, as with Moses' veiled face in Exodus 34, is now removed for all who turn to the Lord. This means everyone can freely come into God's presence and encounter His glory. Understanding Transformation Erica explored the question: What does it mean to be transformed? More than "Change": The Greek word used is metamorpho, the root of metamorphosis. This is far deeper than simply "changing clothes" or improving our appearance. The Butterfly Analogy: Transformation is likened to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The caterpillar doesn't just get "wings"—it dissolves into an unrecognisable form where every single cell is broken down and reformed. A New Creation: God's vision is not for us to be a "better version of ourselves" (a "caterpillar with wings") but a completely brand new creation. This transformative work is from the inside out and is done by the Holy Spirit. Why Does God Transform Us? God transforms us because He is restoring His original image in us. The Original Image: Mankind was made in the image of God to walk with Him in a relationship characterised by natural joy, peace, and freedom from shame and sin. The Broken Image: Sin broke that image, like "hot tar" thrown on the relationship, shattering the natural flow of joy and peace. Restoration, Not Improvement: The Spirit is not "improving" us but restoring, reforming, or reborning the image of Jesus in us, back to how it was meant to be. Power vs. Self-Help: This transformation is God's power at work, not "costume Christianity" or self-help. Information is not transformation. The world offers tips, but the Spirit offers transformation and freedom. The Process of Transformation Erica used the moving story of Little Ted, Liz Patton's rescue dog, to illustrate the nature of the Holy Spirit's work. It's a Process, Not a Moment: Erica's initial idea to "fix" the anxious and fearful dog in one moment by introducing him to another gentle dog was a disaster. The true transformation began only through faithful, consistent love, security, and boundaries over two years. Steady, Patient Work: The Holy Spirit's work is not a "one-time fix" or an "abracadabra" moment. It is a steady, patient transformation from the inside out. Celebrating All Progress: We are changed from "one degree of glory to another". We must celebrate the small degrees of change, as they are still the work of the Holy Spirit. Our Role: Contemplating His Glory While the Spirit sustains and completes the work, we have a role to play: Contemplate, Behold, Look Upon: The scripture says, "those who contemplate, behold, look upon, they're the ones being transformed". Renewal of the Mind: Romans 12:2 says, "be transformed by the renewal of your mind". There is no neutral ground; we are either conforming to the pattern of the world or being transformed by the Spirit. Mindsets to Surrender: We need to discern the "lean" or "posture" of our minds. Do we lean towards: Fear instead of Trust?  Grumbling instead of Gratitude?  Pride instead of Humility?  Worry instead of Worship?  Positioning Ourselves: We position ourselves for transformation by beholding or contemplating Jesus, allowing His truth to renew our minds. Erica concluded by encouraging us to listen to the words of our own hearts to discern our mind's "slant" and to surrender those worldly mindsets to God, committing to be transformed to be like Jesus. Transcript We pray. Amen. Good morning, everybody. Really good to see you all. We're continuing in our theme. My microphone is at the hem of my jumper. There's always a drama with this when I'm speaking, isn't there? There's always something I haven't done. There we go. Is that better? Great, okay. Good morning, everybody. Great. It's good to see you all again. We're following our series on being in life in the Spirit. We've looked at what it means to be led by the Spirit, the fruits of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, and there'll be more of that coming as we go on in the next few weeks. But the title of my message this morning is Transformed by the Spirit of God. And we're going to be looking at 2 Corinthians 3, verses 16 to 18, if you've got your Bibles on you, or this is a great opportunity to get out your phone, and you could even pretend to be on games. And people will think you're reading the Bible. Except the Holy Spirit sees, you know. He sees everything. Just saying. So 2 Corinthians 3, verses 16 to 18, and I'm going to be using the NIV version. Karen mentioned last week about using different versions of the Bible, which I like doing, but the NIV uses a word here that I think is really important. Now, before I come to reading that scripture, I want to kind of set the scene a little bit, because we've kind of arrived at the end of, or in the middle of, Paul's thoughts to the church in Corinth. And if you want to know more about the church in Corinth, you can look that up in Acts chapter 18. So they were a vibrant church, a passionate church, but also they were a bit of an immature church. And although they loved Jesus, they were easily swayed by all the different snazzy teachings that were coming up. And so what Paul is doing is establishing a foundation, and that's where we come to. And before we get to our verse this morning, Paul is reminding the people about an encounter with God that Moses had back in Exodus 34. So those of you that will remember where Moses fits into the picture, if you don't, Exodus 34 and the chapters before will fit you in. But Moses goes up Mount Sinai, he has this incredible encounter with God, separate to the people that he's leading, and God's glory shone so brightly on him that as he comes down from Mount Sinai, that glory is radiated all over his face. And there is this veil that covers the glory of God to protect the people from the shine, but also so that the people couldn't see the glory of God fading, because that's what happened. And what Paul is saying before we come to our scripture is that that veil, that protection isn't needed anymore. That with Jesus, there isn't an elite bunch of people that can encounter God, and those that weren't elite that just got the ends of everything, but all of us, we can come freely into the presence of God and encounter his glory freely because of the sacrifice of Jesus. That when we turn to Jesus, he removes everything that blocks us from truly seeing him, and that's the work of the Holy Spirit. With me so far? Okay. Thank you, Cornelius. I'm looking out for your amens there, the rest of you. Okay. So, 2 Corinthians 3, 16 to 18 says this. Paul is saying to the people, but whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. What's the criteria? Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. This thing that separates, this barrier. Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Now, you can read it the other way on that says if the Spirit of the Lord is not involved, whatever we are experiencing is not freedom. Looks like freedom, masquerades of freedom, but where the Spirit of the Lord is, that is where there is true freedom. Good so far? Good. And we all who with unveiled faces, these are the people that have turned to the Lord. Nick, if I could have a glass of water, that would be really good. Thank you. We all who with unveiled faces, when we contemplate the Lord's glory, so contemplate means to behold, to look upon, to think upon, to be at the presence of, are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Verse 16 is the promise. Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. So if you have given your heart to Jesus, and you have opened your life to him, God removes the veil, that barrier is taken away, which means we have the opportunity not only to see God, to encounter his glory, but for that glory then to be reflected out of us to the people around. Which is great news. Paul says, we all can see and reflect the Lord's glory. This is not just for spiritual elite, this is for all of us. And then he goes on to say, the Lord is the Spirit. And I just want to... Is this yours, Roland? Yeah. It's in my space. I nearly drank it. Is there vodka in there? Just checking. The Lord is the Spirit. It's important to remember that the Holy Spirit is not an it, or a force, or a vibe, or a thing, or an emotion, or a tingle down the spine, or a moment in the church service. The Lord is the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is God himself in our presence, here with us today. He's a person. So we all, who with unveiled faces, contemplate or look upon the Lord's glory, we are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory. And that is the verse that I want us to kind of look at today. And there are four questions that I want us to ask. I want us to ask what it means to be transformed. I want us to ask the question, why are we being transformed? How does it work? And when does it happen? And then, I also want to ask the question, what does that mean for me tomorrow morning, Monday morning, at work, Tuesday morning, in the middle of all the things that I'm going through? What does this scripture mean for me? And how do I apply it to my life? So, some translations, we're going to ask the question, what does it mean to be transformed? Some translations use the word changed. We are being changed. But I feel that that is really a very weak word. Because we change clothes all the time, don't we? We change appearance all the time. Cut our hair, grow our hair, dye our hair. Some of you haven't got any hair. That's okay. But we change things all the time. I'm a different person to how I was when I was a lot younger. There's a lot about change that I can do myself. But the scripture here is talking about transformation, which is a deeper thing. In fact, the Greek word is the word metamorpho, which is the word that Paul uses in this translation, which is where we get the word metamorphosis. Is that how you pronounce it? Metamorphosis. When you say that word, what does it remind you of? Caterpillar and butterflies. Okay. Thank you very much because that's in the notes. Ten points for Jules over there. It's the same word that we use to describe what happens to a caterpillar. Now, a caterpillar starts small. It crawls around on its belly on the ground. It is incredibly limited. It has a very limited lifespan. And then there comes a moment when it spins a cocoon and then something incredible happens inside the cocoon. Any of you that have done biology before, what happens inside that cocoon to that caterpillar? It dissolves. It does what? It dissolves. It dissolves. It mulches down into an unrecognisable blob of something. It's good, isn't it? A blob of something. Very technical. Every single cell changes. Thank you. Every single cell changes. It's the same word. It's the same word in here, the transformation. And it becomes unrecognisable. And in the process of the cocoon, where every single cell is broken down, something is then reformed or reborn, and out comes... Thank you. Out of the cocoon comes a butterfly. It doesn't come and become a caterpillar with wings. Because that's what change does, isn't it? When we change ourselves, we become caterpillars with wings. But what God is speaking about here is that the old has gone, the shape of the caterpillar, all of that is gone. And out of this cocoon is reborn something completely brand new because every single cell has been broken down. And out comes this thing that we call a butterfly. And which is the thing that we ooh and ah at when we see? Do we ooh and ah at the caterpillar or do we ooh and ah at the butterfly? It's the butterfly. And it somehow becomes from this grovelling on the ground kind of creature to this beautiful, unlimited, expansive life of freedom that this butterfly has. I remember once... Was it you or was it Aidan? We went to... Oh, no. When I was a TA in a school, went to the butterfly farm in Cleethorpe. Have you ever been in there? And we walked into the butterfly house and a butterfly landed on... His name was Charlie, actually. A little boy's Charlie's head. And one of the kids said, Oh, look, Charlie, there's a butterfly on your head. And he went... That's just a bit of an aside. It's nothing to do with the scripture. No one's going to start whacking you on the head or anything like that. It's just a... Okay. So, and that's the Holy Spirit work in us. When we turn to Jesus, he begins to transform us from the inside out. He breaks down the cells. He mulches us into something, bit by bit, so that out of it comes this new creation. That's what it means to be reborn. God's vision is not that we become better versions of ourselves. I have to admit that I've used that in some of my evangelistic spiel and said, you know, what God wants to do is to make you kind of the best version of yourself. God knows. He's breaking everything down and transforming us completely, not into caterpillars with wings, but into butterflies. Isn't that amazing? Okay. So that's the first question. That's what it means to be transformed. We are not being edited or adjusted or tweaked or... improved. We are being changed. We are being transformed from one degree of glory to another. So why does God want to transform us? And to answer that question, which is point number two, we have to go back to the beginning. In the beginning, God made mankind in his own image. No other creature on the face of the earth is made in the image of God. No other creature. We are completely different to the rest of God's creation. We were made in the image of God. And you have that wonderful picture of God walking in the garden with his creation, those that were made in the image of him. And in that relationship, because of that uniqueness of it, it was shame-free and blame-free and sin-free and peace and joy were natural. Can you imagine a world where peace and joy comes naturally to us? Put your hands up this morning if peace and joy flow naturally out of you all the time. David, I'm going to ask Jen. I'm going to ask Jen. She's my friend. She'll tell me. But imagine that, where peace and joy flow naturally. That's what the relationship used to be like. And that is because we were made in the image of our creator. So there was that natural sense of relationship. and then we all know the story that a lie was told and a lie was believed and humanity, we weren't content to be like God. We wanted to be God himself and so all of that. And basically, what happened in that moment, it was as if somebody came along with hot tar and threw it up against that beautiful relationship, up against that image of God that was in us. And then that relationship, the natural flow of joy and peace, shame free, sin free, all of that was destroyed. And that is because the image of God in us became broken and damaged. Still with me? Okay. And that natural relationship was shattered and separation came. Now, before Adam and Eve ever knew how to even ask for forgiveness or ask for a way back, we already see God beginning his restoration process, process, don't you? And that's why you can see Jesus all the way through the Old Testament. So, we were made to bear God's image but sin covered the image with self and when the spirit comes along to transform us, he is not improving us, he is restoring or reforming or reborning the image of Jesus in us that was there right back at the beginning of time. because he's not changed his mind, he's actually saying I want it back the way it was, I want you to know, I want you to experience what it means to live in the natural place of joy and peace and relationship with God. Ezekiel 36, 26 says this, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you and that's the difference between costume Christianity and spirit transformation because we all can wear costumes can't we? We all do wear costumes. I know that it's a gift that I've learnt over many years how to put a costume on but that's the difference between costume Christianity and spirit transformation. We can change our image, what we look like on the outside but only God can transform the identity within us and I don't want to live from a place of costume Christianity, I want to know day by day what it means to live the identity of Christ, Jesus in me, Christ in me, the hope of glory. That's why we need power. Not self-help or how to be a better person podcast. Those things are good because they help us to manage habits but they can't make us new. They polish the outside but only the Holy Spirit can change the inside of who we are. In fact, we can't change the inside of who we are and we're arrogant if we think we can somehow change the core of who we are. You can read every book and still feel stuck because information is not transformation. That's why we need power. The world offers tips but the Spirit offers transformation. The world will give us advice but God is the only one that gives us power and the only one that gives us freedom through the Holy Spirit. Now I want to tell you a story this morning about a dog. If I could have his picture up here. Oh, I knew that would get you. Do you know who he is? Little Ted. His name is Little Ted. So I kind of want to use this story. He's really had a huge impact on me. This story to try and give us a bit of an idea of what I mean. So all of you know Liz Patton. Yes. So this is Liz Patton's dog. And by the way I have asked permission to put him up on screen this morning. He's allowed to be streamed by the way. It's all right. We've got permission. Now Little Ted was a rescue dog until about two years ago. And two years ago I had the privilege of going to the rescue center to meet him. And Liz and I took him out for a walk and immediately could see that he was an incredibly anxious and fearful dog. You could tell from his behavior. And also really reactive to other dogs. Really I've never seen anything quite like him and his response. And all you could imagine was what has he experienced in his little life to have got to the stage where he was such a distressed and sad to say trauma. So sad. Is that the word? Trauma? I can't. And when we went to the shelter and inquired about him, Liz obviously had to go away and make up her mind. And so she said to the owner of the shelter, do you mind if I let you know on Friday? I think this was probably Wednesday. And the woman said, oh don't worry about it, let me know any time because nobody wants him, he'll still be here. I know, doesn't it pull on your heart strings? And I didn't say a word to Liz, I thought I can't say anything, I can't even look at her and went to where I thought because my heart was already like well I can't leave him behind. Anyway, within just a few hours Liz had decided that she was going to have him and I don't know that whether or not at the very beginning of having him she thought maybe it had been a mistake because he was incredibly, incredibly difficult dog because of what he'd gone through. Anyway, I had this idea, I said I know what will help him and because he's reactive to other dogs and he's scared of other dogs, I'm going to introduce him to Max. Oh. He died in January. Oh. Max is like a big baluba bear, just a real big therapy dog, everybody loved him, in fact when he died in January the condolences I received were just, everybody loved Max and I thought I know what I'll do, I'm going to invite Liz and little Ted over and we're going to introduce little Ted to Max and there's going to be this huge, just like this amazing transformation as little Ted comes into contact with Max. What a brilliant idea you've had Erica and Liz was saying to me all the time, do you think it will work? And I'm going, absolutely it will work. First of all it's my idea and my ideas generally work, isn't that right Nick? Yeah. And also we're talking about Max here, I mean, and she said to me, are you sure? And all the way in the car, yeah, yeah, I'm absolutely sure. So we pulled up to the house and little Ted started barking in response to Max and then we put them out in the garden together and guess what? It was a disaster. It was an absolute disaster. It was utter chaos. With this gentle giant here ending up with little Ted's head in his mouth. And it was not friendly. And I think the only reason that Max didn't come out without any marks is because little Ted has got no teeth. But it was absolute chaos. Now I have thought about this a lot. That actually although it was kindly motivated, it was incredibly arrogant of me to think that a dog that had been through everything that little Ted had could be fixed in a moment by one of my bright ideas. Now you all know I'm a bit of a fixer. That's how I work. I like to fix. And if I can't fix, I get frustrated. Now I want you to move on two years. And Isla knows this. Two years on little Ted has been at Liz's and he's not perfect. but he's a completely different dog. And it wasn't Max that did it. It was Liz who took the long view. Faithful, consistent love, discipline, security, acceptance, boundaries, and the determination that said, and I admire her for it, she said, no matter what, you are my dog. And that has been a faithful commitment over two years. What I thought I could fix in a moment, Liz has with her faithful commitment to this dog over two years begun and is continuing a transforming work in this dog. Now he's not perfect but I tell you what, he's a million miles better than he was. And I just want to encourage you because that's what the Holy Spirit does in us. He is working Jesus in me. And it's not a one-time fix. I didn't say the sinner's prayer and suddenly all the issues that I deal with or all the issues that are as a result of my broken character, they're not dealt with in a way abracadabra but a steady, patient transformation from the inside out and out working of the Holy Spirit in me. Yes, Amen. I looked back as part of this message, I looked back and saw what God has been doing. So he goes on to say it's changed from one degree of glory to another. I want to encourage you that small degrees are still a work of the Holy Spirit. We celebrate the big jumps, don't we? Wow, look how much that person has changed. But then we often look at ourselves and yeah, but look at me, I'm really rubbish at this or what is God doing? Celebrate the small things that the Holy Spirit is doing in you and then don't despise the small things that the Holy Spirit is doing in someone else. Are you still with me? Okay, so it's the power of the Holy Spirit, aware of time. When does transformation happen? When? Well, it starts the moment the veil is removed, the moment we surrender to God. In fact, that in itself is a work of the Holy Spirit. To be able to see is a work of the Holy Spirit. But then the Bible goes on to say that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. There's the promise, he will do it. Completion, there's the fulfilment. When we stand before Jesus on that day, we will be like him in entirety. But in the process, we are being changed. The Spirit began it, he sustains it, and he completes it. Good with that. So now we know what, and we know why, and we know how, and we will know when. What does that mean? If the Spirit does it all, does that just mean we get to sit around and go, Holy Spirit, change me? No, we don't. The Bible says in that scripture, it says, those who contemplate, behold, look upon, they're the ones being transformed. In Romans 12, 2, it says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the of your mind. Paul is not talking about gaining more information. He's not saying we should all go home and read a concordance. Information is not transformation. But we do all have mindsets. We all lean towards something, and the Bible says either we are conforming to the world or we are being transformed. There is no neutral ground. So either we are leaning into the spirit and we are allowing him to change us, or we can have a lean into things of the world. And he's talking about mindsets. And so when we are thinking about the renewal of our minds, we are thinking about what position has my mind taken? What is the posture or the lean or the attitude of my mind? If it leans towards the things of the world, we will by nature be conformed to the patterns of the world. But if we, with unfilled faces, contemplate his glory, lean into the spirit, then he is faithful to begin that work within us. Still with me? Minds are never neutral. Sometimes they lean our minds towards fear or self-reliance or pride or negativity or shame. That's just some. That's the pattern of the world. But when the Holy Spirit renews our mind, he wants to straighten our lean so that we lean into him. So instead of fear, we begin to trust. I'm learning that a lot when I have one of my children on tracker. They've allowed me to have them on tracker. But when that little green thing stops flashing and it's three o'clock in the morning and and they're no longer, you know what I'm talking about, right? They're no longer live and you, last time they were connected to the internet was 20 minutes ago and it's three o'clock in the morning and they're in the middle of Luton coming out of the airport walking. My mind in the middle of the night goes down the road of fear. As natural as that. And I'm learning, last night, learning to drag it back. And say, I trust you, God. I trust you. My mind has a lean towards fear. My mind can have a lean towards grumbling if I'm not careful. But the Holy Spirit wants to lean me into an attitude of gratitude. As you can see with Max, my mind has a lean towards pride instead of humility, thinking I could fix something. It can lean towards despair instead of hope. Or rebellion instead of obedience. Or criticism instead of compassion or worry instead of worship. Am I the only person in this room? Yeah, let's be honest here. Come on. Renewal isn't about knowing more, but it is learning to think differently. And that's what the Bible says. So, we need to position ourselves. We position ourselves to contemplate him, to think about him, to look over him, to have our minds changed by his truth, and allow him to renew our minds in order that the transforming work of the Holy Spirit can continue freely. I'm going to ask the musicians if you could come back for me. Please. How do you know if your mind is leaning in the right direction? And let's say, just begin to play something. I'm going to ask us to respond. Because maybe you've realised this morning that you do have a slant towards something of a worldly pattern of thinking, a mindset, an attitude. Maybe your mind automatically goes towards fear or control. My mind goes towards control or pride or worry. And the way I think about it is, or the way I discern it in my own life is to listen to the words that I use. Because you know that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And when we speak, not when we speak to our friends and we're putting on a costume, but when we speak in the privacy of our own hearts, what are the words that we use? Because that will tell us which way we are slanted. Do I talk about Jesus but really and truly I trust myself? Or maybe you can tell because peace is not the norm for you, it's the exception. We've been called to a life of peace and part of the transformation of our minds and of our lives is to recognise that we are completely safe in him. That's the truth. Maybe we go down the road of controlling everything and thinking if it's hard it mustn't be God or I need to somehow control it in order for it to work out well. You know, God is great and all that but he really needs my help. Maybe you just feel exhausted but you feel you can't stop pretending or performing. Could be an indicator of where our hearts and our minds are leaning. It might be that you know your heart is sharp about something or someone but you know that Jesus' heart is soft. well there immediately is a what do they call a disparity. It's forming him, Jesus in us. Or maybe it's living in fear so more influenced by the headlines than by scripture. Or maybe faith is tired and hope feels naive. Well it's all very well to have faith but we need to be people that live in the real world. Have you heard that before? Or maybe it's just really simply I know that Jesus, yeah he's part of my life but he's not really the centre. Those things lean us into conforming to the patterns, the mindsets, the postures of the world. And the way we recentre and lean into Jesus is by beholding or contemplating him. So I just wonder if we could stand together. Maybe we need to surrender some of these things to God and actually name them for what they are. I have recognized, and I'm being really open here today, I have recognized how easy it is for me to live in a place of fear. Not about everything, but about certain things. I live in a place of fear and see how my mind goes down that road. It's just like a light switch, it goes down that road. And I know that I have to keep bringing that to God and surrendering it to Him and saying, I trust you. And it might be that's where you're at today and you just know, you know that there's a lean and there's an imbalance. We're leaning into the logic or the understanding or the wise words of the world. Lord, as we worship, I would just love for us to respond together. Holy Spirit, thank you for the transforming work of your power within me. Thank you that you are faithful to complete that which you've started. But our Father, I also know that I have a role to play in all of this. Forgive me for believing the lies of the enemy. Forgive me for my prideful heart that thinks that somehow I can fix things. And if you feel that the Holy Spirit's been pointing something in your heart or highlighting something, just we've got a few minutes. Let's come down to the front and join me here. Let's just pray together. As we surrender our lives, Holy Spirit, we want to be transformed to be like Jesus. I don't want mindsets that don't look like Jesus in my life. I don't want that. I don't want to proclaim freedom and Jesus with my mouth and yet live in bondage in my heart because of something that I'm scared to let go of. If the Holy Spirit's been speaking to you, come and join me as we worship together.

What has been described as the biggest legal claim ever brought in the UK over environmental pollution has been filed at the High Court.  Almost 4000 people have signed up to a class action lawsuit against major poultry producers and a water company over allegations of "extensive and widespread pollution" in the rivers Wye, Lugg and Usk.  They argue that the state of the rivers in recent years has severely affected local businesses, property values and people's enjoyment of the area - and are seeking "substantial damages".  The companies being sued - Avara Foods Limited, Freemans of Newent Limited and Welsh Water - all deny the claims. When King Charles was crowned, a pledge was made to create 25 new or larger National Nature reserves within 5 years.  The "King's series" reserves are meant to move beyond simple conservation - to be bigger, more connected and with nature recovery their primary purpose. The 12th such reserve has just opened and is a significant extension of a reserve in the Yorkshire Dales that contains one third of Britain's flowers and ferns in one biological hotspot.  And all this week we're looking at rural crime. In Scotland, insurers NFU Mututal is reporting a sudden spike in thefts of quad bikes and all terrain vehicles, or ATVs. Data released by them in September this year shows the value of quad bike thefts in Scotland has risen 90%, compared with 2024. Losses are estimated at nearly 200 thousand pounds up to September, compared to £102,000 for whole of last year.Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Sally Challoner.

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This week, Nick delivered a powerful and timely message, urging us to look beyond the exciting projects and outward appearances of our church to the core purpose of our faith: Jesus himself. With the constant theme of "pour out your presence, Lord, pour out your fire" resonating through worship, Nick laid out a vision for a church that is passionate about God's presence and not merely its own accomplishments. Nick started by reflecting on the palpable sense of God's presence and activity within the church, particularly at Hub Church. He spoke of new people coming to faith and others rediscovering their walk with God, a truly encouraging sign of God's significant work amongst us. However, he quickly issued a crucial warning: what we see and experience, what God uses us to do, is not the main thing. The challenge, he emphasized, is to keep the main thing the main thing. He referenced the letter to the church in Revelation, which speaks of a church that had much going on but had "forsaken its first love." This served as a stark reminder that even a vibrant, active church can miss the mark if its focus shifts from worshiping Jesus above all things. Nick shared a profound prophetic word given to a powerful church he knew, which, despite its impressive mission and worship, was warned that "the seeds of your downfall are already in your heart." This wasn't a condemnation, but a gracious challenge to remain undistracted and fully devoted to Jesus. Our calling, Nick stated, is not to be a "successful church with an impressive portfolio of buildings," but to use those things to become a community that worships only Jesus, knows His power, and trusts Him entirely. Drawing parallels to the biblical story of Nehemiah, Nick highlighted a man deeply passionate for God's ways and God's city. Living a comfortable and privileged life, Nehemiah was stirred when he heard that the walls of Jerusalem were in ruins. His heart was grieved, leading him to mourn, fast, and pray. This grief propelled him to action, seeking permission from King Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls. Nehemiah's story serves as an example of being awake to what is on God's heart and being prepared to step up and take responsibility, not for personal comfort, but for God's purposes in a society where "the walls are broken down." Nick vividly recalled how the sermons he first heard as a teenager about Nehemiah profoundly impacted his life, turning him from a path in the Royal Air Force to a calling for something more. He prayed that the young people present would experience a similar stirring, a yearning for "more than this" – a desire for the Holy Spirit to "breathe, blow, and burn" within them, preventing them from becoming merely "religious people going through the motions of church." Nehemiah's rebuilding of the walls, accomplished in an astonishing 52 days, was not the end goal, but rather a prelude to a national revival. The physical project provided the context for God to move in the hearts of the nation. Nick connected this to our own significant projects, like the refurbishment of the pub, 146. He stressed that our call is not simply to renovate a building, but for God to bring renewal, restoration, and revival on the back of such endeavors. The challenge remains: keep the main thing the main thing and don't get distracted. Nick shared about the recent "Big Bible Read," where over 30 people spent five hours reading the entire book of Genesis. This event, he explained, was a testament to a stirring and hunger for something beyond mere church organization or project management. It was a hunger for God's Word, and a powerful demonstration of a deeper yearning. He likened this to the people in Nehemiah's time who, after the walls were rebuilt, gathered with unified purpose as Ezra read the Law. As they listened, they wept, but Ezra and Nehemiah urged them to celebrate, for "the joy of the Lord is your strength." This celebration was unprecedented since the days of Joshua, highlighting a revival coming in the hearts of people who had only known ordinariness and struggle. Ultimately, Nick concluded, the project isn't what it's all about; Jesus is what it's all about. Even the powerful testimonies of lives being rebuilt and rescued from addiction are just a "prelude to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the discovery of what life is all about." He reminded us that God's plan A from the beginning was for us to know the fullness of His Holy Spirit. The cross, while central to our faith, is a "gateway to life," leading us to live "full of the Holy Spirit, in the fullness of the blessing of God, in the freedom of forgiveness." Our desire, Nick stated, is not for people to simply know "the Christian fellowship," but for Jesus to be a household name in this community. He shared a moving story of a man, deeply addicted, who, after hearing God speak to him in a mental health unit, found Jesus at the church and spent the rest of his life directing others to Him. This illustrates the core message: "He [Jesus] must become more, I [we] must become less." Nick specifically addressed the young people, emphasizing the crucial need to see Jesus, not just the church or its activities. He recounted his own conversion at 16, where he didn't commit to a church or project, but to Jesus himself. He prayed that our journey, despite wobbles and weaknesses, would always be characterized by that life-transforming encounter with Jesus. He concluded by challenging everyone, young and old, to seek after Jesus and nothing else. Attending activities and signing up for projects are important for building the "walls," but they are not the "main thing." God desires "more than this" for us – a constant hunger for His fire to fall. He spoke of the danger of filling our lives with Christian tasks while our hearts are far from Jesus. This is a call to lay our lives before God, inviting His fire to burn up anything that hinders our full pursuit of Him. For those who have never encountered Jesus, Nick urged them to reach out to Him today. For those who may feel nostalgic about past moves of God, he emphasized that we are not meant to dwell in the past, but to look forward to what God will do in 2025, 2026, and beyond. Our hope is not just for buildings or church growth, but for the fire of God to fall, stretching our vision and experience of His overwhelming love, leading to a fresh wave of testimonies. Bible References: Revelation (specifically referring to the letter to a church that had "forsaken its first love") Nehemiah Chapter 1 (The story of Nehemiah's grief and prayer for Jerusalem's broken walls) Nehemiah Chapter 8 (The gathering of the people after the walls were rebuilt, Ezra reading the Law, and the people's celebration) Joshua son of Nun (Referenced in Nehemiah 8:17, concerning a previous time of great celebration) John the Baptist (Specifically the phrase "He must become more, I must become less") Transcript Well, this is great. It doesn't even feel like 9.30, does it? Or 9.45. It feels like a lot earlier. That is great to see so many people as well. It's almost like spot the difference. I don't know what happened at 11 o'clock. Maybe there will be nobody here. But it is good to be together and to be setting out together on this new thing that God has for us, which is a great unknown, as I was saying last week. And I think the theme, as Jonathan and the team have been leading through, continuously hearing about, you know, pour out your presence, Lord. Pour out your fire. And the picture in my mind has been like us as a church coming together and having all that we are laid out before God, whether it's our two services, you know, all the things that we do through the week, all that we seek to be, all that we want to see God establish in our prayer. Continually, Lord, send your fire. Send your fire onto our offering, that our offering is that's all it is. It's an offering. But what makes sense of it, what makes it work is your fire, is your presence, Lord, is your, yeah, just the manifestation of who you are. And there's that theme coming through the worship this morning and I believe ties into what I want to speak about briefly this morning. We asked young people also to stay in. They might be thinking, what are we doing here? But I just felt strongly that there are things that God is doing amongst us. You might not understand all of how it all relates, but there are things that we need to know, things that God wants to speak to us, things that God wants to get into our hearts that goes way beyond just coming to church on a Sunday or just coming to youth or just going through the program of what we do as a church. There is so much that God wants to do in our lives and there's so many things that I could say on a day like today, but God is certainly calling us out of our comfort zone into something new. Like I said, our minds could be very much on what God wants to do, and on what part we need to play in it. And the story, as we've already alluded to, goes back over so many years, it brings us to this point. But also the exciting thing is though we also refer back, we look back, and we're grateful for the faithfulness of God over so many years. We're now standing on a threshold, like I said last week, looking forward into a great unknown, but accept that that old adage that says we don't know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. And that we walk forward with God into the future and what He's called us to. One thing we know is that He's called us to something great and the center of gravity of what He's called us to. Even though we come from many parts of the city, and we come from many parts of the world even, He's called us together at this time for something that He wants to do in this place as He pours out His Spirit. And we are seeing a really significant move of God. I was at Hub Church on Tuesday night. If you've never been to Hub Church, pop in one of these Tuesday nights. There were about 50 people in Unit 2. It was packed. The presence of God was there. It was just so good to see people worshiping God freely. There was just a relaxed sort of buzz about the place, and the presence of God was there. And I reflected as I sat on the floor, because there were no seats, that it's about three times bigger than the first church I led in Hub Church. I mean, it's just like, and there it is on a Tuesday night, and God is moving amongst us. There are people coming to faith. People are discovering Him for the first time. People are rediscovering Him for the hundredth time. There's something happening in the hearts of people, and that's so crucial. There's one vitally important thing, a warning actually, I believe, that the Holy Spirit wants to bring to us. That whatever we see, whatever we experience, whatever God uses us to do here on earth, that's not the main thing. And our challenge is to keep the main thing the main thing, because if we end up with a church that celebrates what it does, that celebrates what it achieves, that celebrates what we look like, then we'll have missed it. It's so exciting to be part of the church. That is growing. It's so exciting to be a part of the church. That is making a move for world domination, at least on Jordan Thought Precinct, like, you know, with the 146, and Unit 2, and all that goes on here, and two services. It's so great to have that sense of presence and activity in the life of the church. It's not something I've personally been used to as life has gone on over the years. You know, church life is not always full of so much activity, but it's not the main thing. There was the letter to the church in Revelation, it says, the gist of it is, you've got all this stuff going on. It's great, but you've forsaken your first love. And the one thing that we have to do is make sure that we're never in that position. A church that we were connected with, we weren't at that church at the time, but was such a powerful church. There was so much going on in its life. There were so many things that we looked at and we thought, that's the sort of church you want to be in. There was mission going on, there was worship, there was the presence of God, and yet they had a prophetic word. Now, you know, sometimes our prophecies can be, you know, I love you, says the Lord, and you're great, I think you're fantastic, and you're the best thing ever, says the Lord. And we say, oh thank you, Jesus. And that's when we go away. But sometimes prophetic words come in and they come in with an edge. And this one said that I see, basically, it's a bit like Revelation, I've seen all that you are, I've seen all that you've achieved, I've seen all that you've become, but the seeds of your downfall are already in your heart. I think, wow, thank you, Lord. That's not what you want to hear, you want to pat on the head, don't you? But what a challenge, because, and there's, it's a gracious challenge, it's not like a, you know, well you're a terrible church or anything, it's saying that I want you to be the best that you can possibly be, but I want you to experience the fullest that you can, but yet you can so easily get distracted, and our hearts can so easily get distracted from what the main thing is, which is lifting Jesus above all things. So our calling is not to be a successful church on Jordan, Thorpe and Baitmore, with an impressive portfolio of buildings. It's to use those things to become a community that worships only Jesus, that knows his power, that trusts him entirely, and we use our buildings and our resources and our everything that we've got in our pursuit of those aims. God forbid that we ever become a church so absorbed in our own work and projects that we obscure the vision of Jesus, that we, our hearts get distracted and we think, oh we've, we've got something here. And briefly this morning I want to touch on the story of Nehemiah. I mentioned it last week. Nehemiah was a man passionate for the things of God. He lived in Persia roughly 500 years before Christ was born, and he was an official of King Artaxerxes. That's a name to conjure with. King Artaxerxes. He was cupbearer to the king. He was comfortable, he was privileged, and he had no reason to think beyond that life. Everything was good for him, but there was something stirring in his heart that was, that wouldn't stay quiet, and it was all to do with his passion for God and for God's ways and God's kingdom and God's city. And he heard, he got a message, I'm paraphrasing it, you can look it up in Nehemiah. He heard that the walls of Jerusalem, his beloved city, were in ruins, and his heart was grieved about it. Even the king noticed, why are you so sad? He said, but how, you know, my, my heart said here, he got a message that said in Nehemiah chapter one, things are not going well for those who return to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down and the gates have been destroyed by fire. When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. I sat down and wept. And so in that grief, he took it upon himself to do something. He actually sought permission from the king to step away from his duties and go back to Jerusalem and to rebuild the walls, because there was a passion for that city and a passion for God's ways and a passion for for all that had been lost. And he said, I want to do something to put it right. I want to do something to rebuild those walls. And our challenge is to be awake to what is on God's heart, just as he was. More than that, to be prepared to step up and take responsibility, to take action, to serve the purpose of God, not just, not just pursue our own comfort, but to actually give ourselves, because individuals give ourselves as a church, give ourselves as a community, to what is on God's heart for a community and a society where the walls are broken down. And there was a pain in his heart. He said, I've got to do something. The first sermons I ever heard in my life were around the book of Nehemiah. It was at spring harvest, 1980 something, and it was spring fever. All these old geezers that you see preaching and now they were young chaps then. It was the same guys, but they were, but anyway, yeah, they stories of Nehemiah, how God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things when moved by his spirit and motivated by what's on his heart. And it was those, and I think that's probably part of the year I have for the, you know, I can't do anything to connect God's word to your heart, but we pray that God's spirit opens it up. And I pray for our young people as well that they begin to see the sort of things that I began to see in those days when I was 16, 17 years old, and my life was set on joining the Royal Air Force. I had signed my life away. I'd got a contract until I was 37. There was, there was, everything was set and yet something broke into my heart on that day and in those days to say actually there's more to it than this. What will you do? A stirring, a bit like Nehemiah had a stirring to say I want to do something more. There must be more than this. We sang it this morning. There was that yearning like there must be more than this. Come breath of life. Come breathe within. And that was my prayer then and it's my prayer today that for we, for us as individuals and as a church and as a community that our prayer would become Holy Spirit. Breathe within us again. Don't let us just become religious people going through the motions of church. Oh we've got two services, great. And you, you know, we can enjoy ourselves and we can enjoy our worship and we can enjoy being together, but there's more, there must be more than this. Come breath of life. Come fire of God. Breathe and blow and burn in this place. And so he set about, he went to Jerusalem and he set about rebuilding the walls. He gathered people. He inspired people. He organized them. He managed them. There was opposition, fierce opposition and he handled it. It was a master class of leadership and in 52 days the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt. But what we see then as we go on through the book of Nehemiah is that the, that was just the beginning. The purpose God had was not for Nehemiah to be a builder. That was an expression of the, the passion and the drive that Nehemiah had to say there must be more than this. We want to see God. I don't want to see the walls of God's city broken down and in ruins and the people scattered. I want to see revival and renewal in the national life of Israel. And so he, there was that drive for him. But the walls, once they were there, the walls only became a prelude to a national revival. The physical project became just the foundation, just provided a context, just provided a shape for God to then move in the heart of the nation. And as we, we've got so many wonderful projects. We've got 146 is a project to end all projects as far as we're concerned, but you know there's so much there, but ultimately we won't sort of get it all done, get it all built, get it all post signed off, have a ribbon cutting ceremony and say we've done it now. We've, we've refurbished a pub. That's not the call of God on our life, to refurbish a pub. But what God wants to do is to bring a sense of renewal and restoration and revival on the back of the restoration of a pub and all the other things that we've got going on. And our challenge is to keep the main thing the main thing and not to get distracted by all of those things. Nehemiah could have been distracted, but yet at the end of it all in chapter 8 we're told that the people gathered after the completion of the walls and they gathered with a unified purpose and a priest named Ezra read the book of the law and all the people worshiped. I don't know if you picked up, I'm sure you did, we've been mentioning for some weeks we had the big Bible read yesterday and that was just such a great event. Sheila did a wonderful job of organizing it. It went like clockwork. If you thought that we couldn't run meetings by the clock, you should have come to the big Bible read. We read the entire book of Genesis in five hours and every section finished on the dot by the grace of God. Anyway, that's not what I'm celebrating. What I'm celebrating is the fact that we had nothing else on the agenda. We had 30 plus people here, nothing else on the agenda for five hours except just reading the Word. And when we got to the end it was quite emotional. It was like, oh my goodness, this is powerful. And the only reason I bring that up is because there is something stirring in our heart that is bigger than just what we do, just how we function, just the organization of the church, just the management of projects. There is something that God is stirring. Why would we advertise, oh let's all get together and read the Bible out loud for five hours and 35 people turn up? You know that you'd think they wouldn't come, but they did. And there's a stirring and there's a hunger for something that's beyond. There must be more than this, we're crying. Anyway, that's a bit of an aside. They went through the instructions of the law of God and explained it to the people and some of these people began to see for the first time what they were understanding. You know they had, they just had, people had been born, this generation had been born into a situation where the walls of Jerusalem were broken down. Things weren't going well for the nation and these people knew nothing and they all they knew was the stories of the past, but they knew nothing of what was going on and here they were for the first time perhaps beginning to see the the law come to life in their time and Ezra and Nehemiah, they gathered the people with a unified purpose and they read the law and it says as they listened the people began to weep and then the priest said, don't weep, don't mourn, but celebrate, this is a good day. And then one of the things that I prayed this morning as we came into this new arrangement is that there's a lot to think about, there's a lot to be anxious about. No there isn't, you can't be anxious about anything because we cast all our burdens onto Jesus, but there are things that sometimes cause us a little bit of anxiety aren't there? Things that worry us, things that give us cause for a sleepless night and yet there was that sense of don't weep, don't mourn, don't take yourself too seriously, enjoy the fact that God is on the move, let there be joy in the house, let there be joy in the presence of God. And as Ezra and Nehemiah said to the people, the joy of the Lord is your strength and so they understood for the first time a lot of what they were hearing. And it says in chapter 8 in verse 17 that the Israelites had not celebrated like this since the days of Joshua son of Nun, since the days when they crossed the Jordan river and experienced the most amazing miracles, they've never celebrated like this and these people weren't even born then, this was hundreds of years gone and so they had been born into fairly humdrum drab existence, they're just going through the motions of their life and suddenly they were beginning to see their eyes were open, their hearts were open to begin to see the reality of what God was doing and what he was doing amongst them and they had not celebrated like they celebrated on that day since the days of Joshua. And so there was a real revival coming in the hearts of people, they've never known anything except the ordinariness and the struggle of life and then they've been caught up in this great project to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and then by surprise on the back of that rebuilding project, God visited them and renewed them and restored them and empowered them by his Holy Spirit. And that in a nutshell is really what I want to say today, that the project is not what it's all about, but Jesus is what it's all about. Even the restoration of our lives, it's great to hear testimonies and we've heard many recently powerful testimonies of people who have been baptized and it's so wonderful to see how God is rebuilding lives and rescuing people from addiction and rescuing people from terrible situations and struggle and difficulty and all of that. But ultimately even the rebuilding of our lives is just a prelude to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the discovery of what life is all about. I think it was Ali last week was saying, this isn't plan B, this was plan A. God's plan from the beginning was that we would know the fullness of his Holy Spirit in our lives and so the steps that we take towards it, even the cross, we celebrate, of course we celebrate the cross. The cross is our gateway to life, but that's what it is, a gateway to life. It's an opportunity that we come back, we remind ourselves of what Jesus went through, we remind ourselves of how he suffered, we remind ourselves of how he paid the price, but now because he's paid the price we live, we live full of the Holy Spirit, we live in the fullness of the blessing of God, we live in the freedom of forgiveness and all that that means for us rather than continually going round and round in circles. And so all these things are part of the story, they pave the way to where God has taken us, but he wants to glorify himself and exalt himself, that people wouldn't know MCF here but they would know Jesus, that Jesus would be a household name in this community because that would be our legacy. Not that when a message goes up on Facebook, do you know when you know where you can get a cup of coffee on a Thursday morning? Yeah, the Christian fellowship. People know about the Christian fellowship, but our prayer and our desire is that fire of God would fall so that people would know Jesus is in this place. Remember one man who came to our first church after a few weeks of us being there and he sat at the back of the church and he just stared at the floor, he didn't have any life about him at all and it turned out that he was a very seriously addicted alcoholic and he told me himself, he said he used to drink a bottle of vodka every night and his daughter used to have to carry him to bed. He was in such a state and he ended, he'd been at a Billy Graham meeting many, many years before in the 1960s and he'd given his life to Christ and he'd forgotten all about that and he'd walked away and he'd got, his whole life was in a mess and he ended up in a mental health unit in the local hospital section and he said while he was in there, he said he heard God speak to him, say why don't you come back to me and so he didn't know what to do, how to come back to God so he looked up the church, so he came to the church and he just, life transformed, nobody did anything to him or for him, God just touched his life and he became one of our premier worship leader in the church and he was just like so exciting to see his life transformed in that way but yeah and then, not but, that sounds like a negative doesn't it, but what I got from him was he said, I came back, he said and then people asked me how do you find Jesus, how do you find, so I just told him come with me, I met him at the church, come with me and you'll find him there and so he spent his whole, the whole of the rest of his life, he's still alive, directing people to Jesus because he said I found him, he came to me, he met me in the mental health unit and he called me to himself and now I just tell people to go and find him, you know, and if you can't, if you don't know where to find him go and look in the church. John the Baptist said he must become more, I must become less. Jesus must become more in our experience and in our ministry and in our, in our activity. Jesus must be magnified and glorified and that's why I want to ask the young people to be here today rather than be at specific activities because this is absolutely crucial for you to understand. You might actually think I'm only here because my parents want me to be here or because, you know, because this is, this is what's expected and at our extent Andy said earlier on our vision of God can be like this, shaped like the church, shaped like the youth activity, shaped like whatever we do and yet God is wanting to stretch our understanding and stretch our vision of who he is and what he can do and what he can be in our lives and my prayer for you is that he would open your eyes to see Jesus, not the church, not anything else but to see Jesus. He did it for me when I was 16. I didn't commit myself to a church or a project, I didn't know anything about church, but Jesus called me to himself and when they said do you want to, want to give your life to Christ, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to go and find Jesus. I wanted to be filled with the spirit of Jesus. I wanted to understand who Jesus was. I wanted to follow Jesus. I wanted to, to, for other people to understand who Jesus was. That's all that mattered and that's what our prayer is, that that would be the hallmark of our revival and our renewal that goes on, that Jesus would change our life forever and I can say though I've had 30 plus years in leadership, I'm not a model believer or a champion prayer. From years back people bought me a booklet, this is how you learn to pray. I've never felt like an expert in anything to do with that, my faith has often been weak, struggles have been real, but something changed in my heart 40 years ago that's never changed back. The shape of my heart changed, the shape of my life, my outlook, my perspective, my understanding, my belief, my trust, everything changed and in the meantime it's been wobbly and it's been weak at times and there's been challenges and there's been issues and still there's so much for me to learn at my young age, but Jesus makes all the difference and it's our prayer that we don't just introduce people to what we do. It's great we've got our welcome packs and this is what we do through the week, but all of that are just walls, all of that is just shape, all of that is just a context in which we can meet God and so I would encourage you in your hearts, whether you're young, whether you're old, whether you get it, whether you don't, to be seeking after Jesus and going after Him and nothing else. You don't get points for how many activities you go to in a week or how many names you put on the sign-up sheet, you don't get points for that. It's great if you do it because we need it, it's the walls, but in actual fact that's not the point, it's not the main thing. God wants more for us, there must be more than this and so there is a challenge for all of us, whether we're young or whether we're old, we can't just bypass, you know this is a challenge for leadership, it's a challenge for me because in a way I have a full-time framework for what I do and I can and I can fill my diary with meetings, with projects, with things to do, with people to visit, with spreadsheets to fill in, I can do all of that. I think, wow, I'm a full-time Christian worker. I can do all of that and my heart can be far from where God wants it to be, my heart can be far from Jesus, and my prayer for myself as we respond to this is, is that God let your fire fall on me, that in this, you know there's a lot that I've seen in life, there's a lot that we've experienced, there's a lot to go back over, but yet looking forward that's what I want it to be, that's where I want to be, going forward, that's where we want to see the fire of God. I want to just tell stories of the past, stories of the past are important because they remind us of what God has done and how, how far we've come, but if we don't have anything, don't have any vision or hope or expectation for the future that the fire of God will fall, then we're going to, we're going to fail, we're going to, we're going to lose energy, we're going to run out of steam. When it comes to the nine o'clock meeting on the 13th of November or whatever it is, we're going to think, oh again, there needs to be that. And there's two categories of people, maybe you've never known what it is to give your heart to Jesus, maybe you've known, maybe no church, maybe you know, maybe you're trying your best, you're trying your best to to work it out, you're trying your best to, to give yourself, to build some religious walls around your life so that you can feel like a better person and you can feel like you've got things in order, but you've never known what it is to give your heart to the Lord completely. You've never encountered Jesus and the power of His love and that is crucial for you today, and if that is you today, don't leave this place without reaching out to Him. And there are those of us who do know, but we feel maybe it's all behind us, we knew that once, we're nostalgic. One of the things that was brought up at the conference last week that we were at was the issue of nostalgia, how easy it is to be nostalgic. For those of us of a certain age, there were exciting times in the 1980s, 1990s, the things that happened in the church. It's very easy to think, oh let's go back to that, but the whole point is not going back to that. It's about looking forward, about looking forward to what God can do in 2025, 2026, 2030. What stories are we going to tell then? Cornelius was praying this morning, don't mind me mentioning you, we were praying and he was saying, you know we've seen moves of God, we've seen Pensacola, we've seen Toronto, we've seen what God did in Mozambique, and yet there's a sense, there's a hunger for God to do something new and fresh here now. That's what we want. We need the stories of Pensacola and Toronto and Mozambique and all of that to encourage us and strengthen our faith and to focus our minds, but we're not just going to celebrate what that was. We're going to step into what God has for us, and it's much, much more than a building project. It's much, much more than a church with two services. It's much, much more than planting a church or whatever we do in the future. It's more than all of that. It's that the fire of God will fall, and so maybe you're not sure about what it all means for you now. We can be pleased about it. We can be pleased about what God is doing, but we don't know how we fit in. God is wanting to touch you with fire. God wants to touch your heart with fire, for you to see things, and His Word is absolutely relevant. We're like this. We've got God. We love Him. He's powerful. He's faithful to us. He does good things for us, but there's so much more, and He wants to stretch our vision, stretch our understanding, stretch our experience. Sometimes we're nervous of that word, experience. God wants to stretch our experience of Him, our experience of His love. Some of us can think back many, many years to times when we've really encountered the presence and power of God and the overwhelming love of Jesus, and yet it feels like it's all the way past. God wants to touch you again with those things, that you would have a testimony that we wouldn't be able to just say, does anybody have a 60-second testimony? Because it would throw the whole program out because of our experience of God, so we need to be hungry for Him. And so as we return, maybe the worship team could come back. Think about what this is. Lord, we're thankful, thankful, so thankful for what you're doing in our midst, so thankful for the shape of the church, thankful that we can have two services, thankful that we've got a building project, thank you that those things are coming together, but Lord, there must be more, there is more. Lord, let your fire fall, and what I want you to do is not just broaden this response, but look into your own heart. Like I said, young or old, whatever your circumstances, whatever the hang-ups, whatever the issues, whatever the things that are making you hesitate, bring it all to God. Lay it all out before Him and say, Lord, burn it up. Let your fire fall on the offering of my life. May I know you. Maybe you don't feel like you know Him. There's not a million miles, He's not a million miles away. Just reach out to Him, reach out to Him now as we respond. And if you want to come here, come forward, someone to pray with you, someone to help you, someone to encourage you, do that because we'd be more than happy and the space is here. Just come as we worship as Jonathan leads us and the team. Come and we will pray together and God's fire will fall upon us. Amen.

This week, Nick delivered a powerful and timely message, urging us to look beyond the exciting projects and outward appearances of our church to the core purpose of our faith: Jesus himself. With the constant theme of "pour out your presence, Lord, pour out your fire" resonating through worship, Nick laid out a vision for a church that is passionate about God's presence and not merely its own accomplishments. Nick started by reflecting on the palpable sense of God's presence and activity within the church, particularly at Hub Church. He spoke of new people coming to faith and others rediscovering their walk with God, a truly encouraging sign of God's significant work amongst us. However, he quickly issued a crucial warning: what we see and experience, what God uses us to do, is not the main thing. The challenge, he emphasized, is to keep the main thing the main thing. He referenced the letter to the church in Revelation, which speaks of a church that had much going on but had "forsaken its first love." This served as a stark reminder that even a vibrant, active church can miss the mark if its focus shifts from worshiping Jesus above all things. Nick shared a profound prophetic word given to a powerful church he knew, which, despite its impressive mission and worship, was warned that "the seeds of your downfall are already in your heart." This wasn't a condemnation, but a gracious challenge to remain undistracted and fully devoted to Jesus. Our calling, Nick stated, is not to be a "successful church with an impressive portfolio of buildings," but to use those things to become a community that worships only Jesus, knows His power, and trusts Him entirely. Drawing parallels to the biblical story of Nehemiah, Nick highlighted a man deeply passionate for God's ways and God's city. Living a comfortable and privileged life, Nehemiah was stirred when he heard that the walls of Jerusalem were in ruins. His heart was grieved, leading him to mourn, fast, and pray. This grief propelled him to action, seeking permission from King Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls. Nehemiah's story serves as an example of being awake to what is on God's heart and being prepared to step up and take responsibility, not for personal comfort, but for God's purposes in a society where "the walls are broken down." Nick vividly recalled how the sermons he first heard as a teenager about Nehemiah profoundly impacted his life, turning him from a path in the Royal Air Force to a calling for something more. He prayed that the young people present would experience a similar stirring, a yearning for "more than this" – a desire for the Holy Spirit to "breathe, blow, and burn" within them, preventing them from becoming merely "religious people going through the motions of church." Nehemiah's rebuilding of the walls, accomplished in an astonishing 52 days, was not the end goal, but rather a prelude to a national revival. The physical project provided the context for God to move in the hearts of the nation. Nick connected this to our own significant projects, like the refurbishment of the pub, 146. He stressed that our call is not simply to renovate a building, but for God to bring renewal, restoration, and revival on the back of such endeavors. The challenge remains: keep the main thing the main thing and don't get distracted. Nick shared about the recent "Big Bible Read," where over 30 people spent five hours reading the entire book of Genesis. This event, he explained, was a testament to a stirring and hunger for something beyond mere church organization or project management. It was a hunger for God's Word, and a powerful demonstration of a deeper yearning. He likened this to the people in Nehemiah's time who, after the walls were rebuilt, gathered with unified purpose as Ezra read the Law. As they listened, they wept, but Ezra and Nehemiah urged them to celebrate, for "the joy of the Lord is your strength." This celebration was unprecedented since the days of Joshua, highlighting a revival coming in the hearts of people who had only known ordinariness and struggle. Ultimately, Nick concluded, the project isn't what it's all about; Jesus is what it's all about. Even the powerful testimonies of lives being rebuilt and rescued from addiction are just a "prelude to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the discovery of what life is all about." He reminded us that God's plan A from the beginning was for us to know the fullness of His Holy Spirit. The cross, while central to our faith, is a "gateway to life," leading us to live "full of the Holy Spirit, in the fullness of the blessing of God, in the freedom of forgiveness." Our desire, Nick stated, is not for people to simply know "the Christian fellowship," but for Jesus to be a household name in this community. He shared a moving story of a man, deeply addicted, who, after hearing God speak to him in a mental health unit, found Jesus at the church and spent the rest of his life directing others to Him. This illustrates the core message: "He [Jesus] must become more, I [we] must become less." Nick specifically addressed the young people, emphasizing the crucial need to see Jesus, not just the church or its activities. He recounted his own conversion at 16, where he didn't commit to a church or project, but to Jesus himself. He prayed that our journey, despite wobbles and weaknesses, would always be characterized by that life-transforming encounter with Jesus. He concluded by challenging everyone, young and old, to seek after Jesus and nothing else. Attending activities and signing up for projects are important for building the "walls," but they are not the "main thing." God desires "more than this" for us – a constant hunger for His fire to fall. He spoke of the danger of filling our lives with Christian tasks while our hearts are far from Jesus. This is a call to lay our lives before God, inviting His fire to burn up anything that hinders our full pursuit of Him. For those who have never encountered Jesus, Nick urged them to reach out to Him today. For those who may feel nostalgic about past moves of God, he emphasized that we are not meant to dwell in the past, but to look forward to what God will do in 2025, 2026, and beyond. Our hope is not just for buildings or church growth, but for the fire of God to fall, stretching our vision and experience of His overwhelming love, leading to a fresh wave of testimonies. Bible References: Revelation (specifically referring to the letter to a church that had "forsaken its first love") Nehemiah Chapter 1 (The story of Nehemiah's grief and prayer for Jerusalem's broken walls) Nehemiah Chapter 8 (The gathering of the people after the walls were rebuilt, Ezra reading the Law, and the people's celebration) Joshua son of Nun (Referenced in Nehemiah 8:17, concerning a previous time of great celebration) John the Baptist (Specifically the phrase "He must become more, I must become less") Transcript Well, this is great. It doesn't even feel like 9.30, does it? Or 9.45. It feels like a lot earlier. That is great to see so many people as well. It's almost like spot the difference. I don't know what happened at 11 o'clock. Maybe there will be nobody here. But it is good to be together and to be setting out together on this new thing that God has for us, which is a great unknown, as I was saying last week. And I think the theme, as Jonathan and the team have been leading through, continuously hearing about, you know, pour out your presence, Lord. Pour out your fire. And the picture in my mind has been like us as a church coming together and having all that we are laid out before God, whether it's our two services, you know, all the things that we do through the week, all that we seek to be, all that we want to see God establish in our prayer. Continually, Lord, send your fire. Send your fire onto our offering, that our offering is that's all it is. It's an offering. But what makes sense of it, what makes it work is your fire, is your presence, Lord, is your, yeah, just the manifestation of who you are. And there's that theme coming through the worship this morning and I believe ties into what I want to speak about briefly this morning. We asked young people also to stay in. They might be thinking, what are we doing here? But I just felt strongly that there are things that God is doing amongst us. You might not understand all of how it all relates, but there are things that we need to know, things that God wants to speak to us, things that God wants to get into our hearts that goes way beyond just coming to church on a Sunday or just coming to youth or just going through the program of what we do as a church. There is so much that God wants to do in our lives and there's so many things that I could say on a day like today, but God is certainly calling us out of our comfort zone into something new. Like I said, our minds could be very much on what God wants to do, and on what part we need to play in it. And the story, as we've already alluded to, goes back over so many years, it brings us to this point. But also the exciting thing is though we also refer back, we look back, and we're grateful for the faithfulness of God over so many years. We're now standing on a threshold, like I said last week, looking forward into a great unknown, but accept that that old adage that says we don't know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. And that we walk forward with God into the future and what He's called us to. One thing we know is that He's called us to something great and the center of gravity of what He's called us to. Even though we come from many parts of the city, and we come from many parts of the world even, He's called us together at this time for something that He wants to do in this place as He pours out His Spirit. And we are seeing a really significant move of God. I was at Hub Church on Tuesday night. If you've never been to Hub Church, pop in one of these Tuesday nights. There were about 50 people in Unit 2. It was packed. The presence of God was there. It was just so good to see people worshiping God freely. There was just a relaxed sort of buzz about the place, and the presence of God was there. And I reflected as I sat on the floor, because there were no seats, that it's about three times bigger than the first church I led in Hub Church. I mean, it's just like, and there it is on a Tuesday night, and God is moving amongst us. There are people coming to faith. People are discovering Him for the first time. People are rediscovering Him for the hundredth time. There's something happening in the hearts of people, and that's so crucial. There's one vitally important thing, a warning actually, I believe, that the Holy Spirit wants to bring to us. That whatever we see, whatever we experience, whatever God uses us to do here on earth, that's not the main thing. And our challenge is to keep the main thing the main thing, because if we end up with a church that celebrates what it does, that celebrates what it achieves, that celebrates what we look like, then we'll have missed it. It's so exciting to be part of the church. That is growing. It's so exciting to be a part of the church. That is making a move for world domination, at least on Jordan Thought Precinct, like, you know, with the 146, and Unit 2, and all that goes on here, and two services. It's so great to have that sense of presence and activity in the life of the church. It's not something I've personally been used to as life has gone on over the years. You know, church life is not always full of so much activity, but it's not the main thing. There was the letter to the church in Revelation, it says, the gist of it is, you've got all this stuff going on. It's great, but you've forsaken your first love. And the one thing that we have to do is make sure that we're never in that position. A church that we were connected with, we weren't at that church at the time, but was such a powerful church. There was so much going on in its life. There were so many things that we looked at and we thought, that's the sort of church you want to be in. There was mission going on, there was worship, there was the presence of God, and yet they had a prophetic word. Now, you know, sometimes our prophecies can be, you know, I love you, says the Lord, and you're great, I think you're fantastic, and you're the best thing ever, says the Lord. And we say, oh thank you, Jesus. And that's when we go away. But sometimes prophetic words come in and they come in with an edge. And this one said that I see, basically, it's a bit like Revelation, I've seen all that you are, I've seen all that you've achieved, I've seen all that you've become, but the seeds of your downfall are already in your heart. I think, wow, thank you, Lord. That's not what you want to hear, you want to pat on the head, don't you? But what a challenge, because, and there's, it's a gracious challenge, it's not like a, you know, well you're a terrible church or anything, it's saying that I want you to be the best that you can possibly be, but I want you to experience the fullest that you can, but yet you can so easily get distracted, and our hearts can so easily get distracted from what the main thing is, which is lifting Jesus above all things. So our calling is not to be a successful church on Jordan, Thorpe and Baitmore, with an impressive portfolio of buildings. It's to use those things to become a community that worships only Jesus, that knows his power, that trusts him entirely, and we use our buildings and our resources and our everything that we've got in our pursuit of those aims. God forbid that we ever become a church so absorbed in our own work and projects that we obscure the vision of Jesus, that we, our hearts get distracted and we think, oh we've, we've got something here. And briefly this morning I want to touch on the story of Nehemiah. I mentioned it last week. Nehemiah was a man passionate for the things of God. He lived in Persia roughly 500 years before Christ was born, and he was an official of King Artaxerxes. That's a name to conjure with. King Artaxerxes. He was cupbearer to the king. He was comfortable, he was privileged, and he had no reason to think beyond that life. Everything was good for him, but there was something stirring in his heart that was, that wouldn't stay quiet, and it was all to do with his passion for God and for God's ways and God's kingdom and God's city. And he heard, he got a message, I'm paraphrasing it, you can look it up in Nehemiah. He heard that the walls of Jerusalem, his beloved city, were in ruins, and his heart was grieved about it. Even the king noticed, why are you so sad? He said, but how, you know, my, my heart said here, he got a message that said in Nehemiah chapter one, things are not going well for those who return to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down and the gates have been destroyed by fire. When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. I sat down and wept. And so in that grief, he took it upon himself to do something. He actually sought permission from the king to step away from his duties and go back to Jerusalem and to rebuild the walls, because there was a passion for that city and a passion for God's ways and a passion for for all that had been lost. And he said, I want to do something to put it right. I want to do something to rebuild those walls. And our challenge is to be awake to what is on God's heart, just as he was. More than that, to be prepared to step up and take responsibility, to take action, to serve the purpose of God, not just, not just pursue our own comfort, but to actually give ourselves, because individuals give ourselves as a church, give ourselves as a community, to what is on God's heart for a community and a society where the walls are broken down. And there was a pain in his heart. He said, I've got to do something. The first sermons I ever heard in my life were around the book of Nehemiah. It was at spring harvest, 1980 something, and it was spring fever. All these old geezers that you see preaching and now they were young chaps then. It was the same guys, but they were, but anyway, yeah, they stories of Nehemiah, how God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things when moved by his spirit and motivated by what's on his heart. And it was those, and I think that's probably part of the year I have for the, you know, I can't do anything to connect God's word to your heart, but we pray that God's spirit opens it up. And I pray for our young people as well that they begin to see the sort of things that I began to see in those days when I was 16, 17 years old, and my life was set on joining the Royal Air Force. I had signed my life away. I'd got a contract until I was 37. There was, there was, everything was set and yet something broke into my heart on that day and in those days to say actually there's more to it than this. What will you do? A stirring, a bit like Nehemiah had a stirring to say I want to do something more. There must be more than this. We sang it this morning. There was that yearning like there must be more than this. Come breath of life. Come breathe within. And that was my prayer then and it's my prayer today that for we, for us as individuals and as a church and as a community that our prayer would become Holy Spirit. Breathe within us again. Don't let us just become religious people going through the motions of church. Oh we've got two services, great. And you, you know, we can enjoy ourselves and we can enjoy our worship and we can enjoy being together, but there's more, there must be more than this. Come breath of life. Come fire of God. Breathe and blow and burn in this place. And so he set about, he went to Jerusalem and he set about rebuilding the walls. He gathered people. He inspired people. He organized them. He managed them. There was opposition, fierce opposition and he handled it. It was a master class of leadership and in 52 days the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt. But what we see then as we go on through the book of Nehemiah is that the, that was just the beginning. The purpose God had was not for Nehemiah to be a builder. That was an expression of the, the passion and the drive that Nehemiah had to say there must be more than this. We want to see God. I don't want to see the walls of God's city broken down and in ruins and the people scattered. I want to see revival and renewal in the national life of Israel. And so he, there was that drive for him. But the walls, once they were there, the walls only became a prelude to a national revival. The physical project became just the foundation, just provided a context, just provided a shape for God to then move in the heart of the nation. And as we, we've got so many wonderful projects. We've got 146 is a project to end all projects as far as we're concerned, but you know there's so much there, but ultimately we won't sort of get it all done, get it all built, get it all post signed off, have a ribbon cutting ceremony and say we've done it now. We've, we've refurbished a pub. That's not the call of God on our life, to refurbish a pub. But what God wants to do is to bring a sense of renewal and restoration and revival on the back of the restoration of a pub and all the other things that we've got going on. And our challenge is to keep the main thing the main thing and not to get distracted by all of those things. Nehemiah could have been distracted, but yet at the end of it all in chapter 8 we're told that the people gathered after the completion of the walls and they gathered with a unified purpose and a priest named Ezra read the book of the law and all the people worshiped. I don't know if you picked up, I'm sure you did, we've been mentioning for some weeks we had the big Bible read yesterday and that was just such a great event. Sheila did a wonderful job of organizing it. It went like clockwork. If you thought that we couldn't run meetings by the clock, you should have come to the big Bible read. We read the entire book of Genesis in five hours and every section finished on the dot by the grace of God. Anyway, that's not what I'm celebrating. What I'm celebrating is the fact that we had nothing else on the agenda. We had 30 plus people here, nothing else on the agenda for five hours except just reading the Word. And when we got to the end it was quite emotional. It was like, oh my goodness, this is powerful. And the only reason I bring that up is because there is something stirring in our heart that is bigger than just what we do, just how we function, just the organization of the church, just the management of projects. There is something that God is stirring. Why would we advertise, oh let's all get together and read the Bible out loud for five hours and 35 people turn up? You know that you'd think they wouldn't come, but they did. And there's a stirring and there's a hunger for something that's beyond. There must be more than this, we're crying. Anyway, that's a bit of an aside. They went through the instructions of the law of God and explained it to the people and some of these people began to see for the first time what they were understanding. You know they had, they just had, people had been born, this generation had been born into a situation where the walls of Jerusalem were broken down. Things weren't going well for the nation and these people knew nothing and they all they knew was the stories of the past, but they knew nothing of what was going on and here they were for the first time perhaps beginning to see the the law come to life in their time and Ezra and Nehemiah, they gathered the people with a unified purpose and they read the law and it says as they listened the people began to weep and then the priest said, don't weep, don't mourn, but celebrate, this is a good day. And then one of the things that I prayed this morning as we came into this new arrangement is that there's a lot to think about, there's a lot to be anxious about. No there isn't, you can't be anxious about anything because we cast all our burdens onto Jesus, but there are things that sometimes cause us a little bit of anxiety aren't there? Things that worry us, things that give us cause for a sleepless night and yet there was that sense of don't weep, don't mourn, don't take yourself too seriously, enjoy the fact that God is on the move, let there be joy in the house, let there be joy in the presence of God. And as Ezra and Nehemiah said to the people, the joy of the Lord is your strength and so they understood for the first time a lot of what they were hearing. And it says in chapter 8 in verse 17 that the Israelites had not celebrated like this since the days of Joshua son of Nun, since the days when they crossed the Jordan river and experienced the most amazing miracles, they've never celebrated like this and these people weren't even born then, this was hundreds of years gone and so they had been born into fairly humdrum drab existence, they're just going through the motions of their life and suddenly they were beginning to see their eyes were open, their hearts were open to begin to see the reality of what God was doing and what he was doing amongst them and they had not celebrated like they celebrated on that day since the days of Joshua. And so there was a real revival coming in the hearts of people, they've never known anything except the ordinariness and the struggle of life and then they've been caught up in this great project to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and then by surprise on the back of that rebuilding project, God visited them and renewed them and restored them and empowered them by his Holy Spirit. And that in a nutshell is really what I want to say today, that the project is not what it's all about, but Jesus is what it's all about. Even the restoration of our lives, it's great to hear testimonies and we've heard many recently powerful testimonies of people who have been baptized and it's so wonderful to see how God is rebuilding lives and rescuing people from addiction and rescuing people from terrible situations and struggle and difficulty and all of that. But ultimately even the rebuilding of our lives is just a prelude to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the discovery of what life is all about. I think it was Ali last week was saying, this isn't plan B, this was plan A. God's plan from the beginning was that we would know the fullness of his Holy Spirit in our lives and so the steps that we take towards it, even the cross, we celebrate, of course we celebrate the cross. The cross is our gateway to life, but that's what it is, a gateway to life. It's an opportunity that we come back, we remind ourselves of what Jesus went through, we remind ourselves of how he suffered, we remind ourselves of how he paid the price, but now because he's paid the price we live, we live full of the Holy Spirit, we live in the fullness of the blessing of God, we live in the freedom of forgiveness and all that that means for us rather than continually going round and round in circles. And so all these things are part of the story, they pave the way to where God has taken us, but he wants to glorify himself and exalt himself, that people wouldn't know MCF here but they would know Jesus, that Jesus would be a household name in this community because that would be our legacy. Not that when a message goes up on Facebook, do you know when you know where you can get a cup of coffee on a Thursday morning? Yeah, the Christian fellowship. People know about the Christian fellowship, but our prayer and our desire is that fire of God would fall so that people would know Jesus is in this place. Remember one man who came to our first church after a few weeks of us being there and he sat at the back of the church and he just stared at the floor, he didn't have any life about him at all and it turned out that he was a very seriously addicted alcoholic and he told me himself, he said he used to drink a bottle of vodka every night and his daughter used to have to carry him to bed. He was in such a state and he ended, he'd been at a Billy Graham meeting many, many years before in the 1960s and he'd given his life to Christ and he'd forgotten all about that and he'd walked away and he'd got, his whole life was in a mess and he ended up in a mental health unit in the local hospital section and he said while he was in there, he said he heard God speak to him, say why don't you come back to me and so he didn't know what to do, how to come back to God so he looked up the church, so he came to the church and he just, life transformed, nobody did anything to him or for him, God just touched his life and he became one of our premier worship leader in the church and he was just like so exciting to see his life transformed in that way but yeah and then, not but, that sounds like a negative doesn't it, but what I got from him was he said, I came back, he said and then people asked me how do you find Jesus, how do you find, so I just told him come with me, I met him at the church, come with me and you'll find him there and so he spent his whole, the whole of the rest of his life, he's still alive, directing people to Jesus because he said I found him, he came to me, he met me in the mental health unit and he called me to himself and now I just tell people to go and find him, you know, and if you can't, if you don't know where to find him go and look in the church. John the Baptist said he must become more, I must become less. Jesus must become more in our experience and in our ministry and in our, in our activity. Jesus must be magnified and glorified and that's why I want to ask the young people to be here today rather than be at specific activities because this is absolutely crucial for you to understand. You might actually think I'm only here because my parents want me to be here or because, you know, because this is, this is what's expected and at our extent Andy said earlier on our vision of God can be like this, shaped like the church, shaped like the youth activity, shaped like whatever we do and yet God is wanting to stretch our understanding and stretch our vision of who he is and what he can do and what he can be in our lives and my prayer for you is that he would open your eyes to see Jesus, not the church, not anything else but to see Jesus. He did it for me when I was 16. I didn't commit myself to a church or a project, I didn't know anything about church, but Jesus called me to himself and when they said do you want to, want to give your life to Christ, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to go and find Jesus. I wanted to be filled with the spirit of Jesus. I wanted to understand who Jesus was. I wanted to follow Jesus. I wanted to, to, for other people to understand who Jesus was. That's all that mattered and that's what our prayer is, that that would be the hallmark of our revival and our renewal that goes on, that Jesus would change our life forever and I can say though I've had 30 plus years in leadership, I'm not a model believer or a champion prayer. From years back people bought me a booklet, this is how you learn to pray. I've never felt like an expert in anything to do with that, my faith has often been weak, struggles have been real, but something changed in my heart 40 years ago that's never changed back. The shape of my heart changed, the shape of my life, my outlook, my perspective, my understanding, my belief, my trust, everything changed and in the meantime it's been wobbly and it's been weak at times and there's been challenges and there's been issues and still there's so much for me to learn at my young age, but Jesus makes all the difference and it's our prayer that we don't just introduce people to what we do. It's great we've got our welcome packs and this is what we do through the week, but all of that are just walls, all of that is just shape, all of that is just a context in which we can meet God and so I would encourage you in your hearts, whether you're young, whether you're old, whether you get it, whether you don't, to be seeking after Jesus and going after Him and nothing else. You don't get points for how many activities you go to in a week or how many names you put on the sign-up sheet, you don't get points for that. It's great if you do it because we need it, it's the walls, but in actual fact that's not the point, it's not the main thing. God wants more for us, there must be more than this and so there is a challenge for all of us, whether we're young or whether we're old, we can't just bypass, you know this is a challenge for leadership, it's a challenge for me because in a way I have a full-time framework for what I do and I can and I can fill my diary with meetings, with projects, with things to do, with people to visit, with spreadsheets to fill in, I can do all of that. I think, wow, I'm a full-time Christian worker. I can do all of that and my heart can be far from where God wants it to be, my heart can be far from Jesus, and my prayer for myself as we respond to this is, is that God let your fire fall on me, that in this, you know there's a lot that I've seen in life, there's a lot that we've experienced, there's a lot to go back over, but yet looking forward that's what I want it to be, that's where I want to be, going forward, that's where we want to see the fire of God. I want to just tell stories of the past, stories of the past are important because they remind us of what God has done and how, how far we've come, but if we don't have anything, don't have any vision or hope or expectation for the future that the fire of God will fall, then we're going to, we're going to fail, we're going to, we're going to lose energy, we're going to run out of steam. When it comes to the nine o'clock meeting on the 13th of November or whatever it is, we're going to think, oh again, there needs to be that. And there's two categories of people, maybe you've never known what it is to give your heart to Jesus, maybe you've known, maybe no church, maybe you know, maybe you're trying your best, you're trying your best to to work it out, you're trying your best to, to give yourself, to build some religious walls around your life so that you can feel like a better person and you can feel like you've got things in order, but you've never known what it is to give your heart to the Lord completely. You've never encountered Jesus and the power of His love and that is crucial for you today, and if that is you today, don't leave this place without reaching out to Him. And there are those of us who do know, but we feel maybe it's all behind us, we knew that once, we're nostalgic. One of the things that was brought up at the conference last week that we were at was the issue of nostalgia, how easy it is to be nostalgic. For those of us of a certain age, there were exciting times in the 1980s, 1990s, the things that happened in the church. It's very easy to think, oh let's go back to that, but the whole point is not going back to that. It's about looking forward, about looking forward to what God can do in 2025, 2026, 2030. What stories are we going to tell then? Cornelius was praying this morning, don't mind me mentioning you, we were praying and he was saying, you know we've seen moves of God, we've seen Pensacola, we've seen Toronto, we've seen what God did in Mozambique, and yet there's a sense, there's a hunger for God to do something new and fresh here now. That's what we want. We need the stories of Pensacola and Toronto and Mozambique and all of that to encourage us and strengthen our faith and to focus our minds, but we're not just going to celebrate what that was. We're going to step into what God has for us, and it's much, much more than a building project. It's much, much more than a church with two services. It's much, much more than planting a church or whatever we do in the future. It's more than all of that. It's that the fire of God will fall, and so maybe you're not sure about what it all means for you now. We can be pleased about it. We can be pleased about what God is doing, but we don't know how we fit in. God is wanting to touch you with fire. God wants to touch your heart with fire, for you to see things, and His Word is absolutely relevant. We're like this. We've got God. We love Him. He's powerful. He's faithful to us. He does good things for us, but there's so much more, and He wants to stretch our vision, stretch our understanding, stretch our experience. Sometimes we're nervous of that word, experience. God wants to stretch our experience of Him, our experience of His love. Some of us can think back many, many years to times when we've really encountered the presence and power of God and the overwhelming love of Jesus, and yet it feels like it's all the way past. God wants to touch you again with those things, that you would have a testimony that we wouldn't be able to just say, does anybody have a 60-second testimony? Because it would throw the whole program out because of our experience of God, so we need to be hungry for Him. And so as we return, maybe the worship team could come back. Think about what this is. Lord, we're thankful, thankful, so thankful for what you're doing in our midst, so thankful for the shape of the church, thankful that we can have two services, thankful that we've got a building project, thank you that those things are coming together, but Lord, there must be more, there is more. Lord, let your fire fall, and what I want you to do is not just broaden this response, but look into your own heart. Like I said, young or old, whatever your circumstances, whatever the hang-ups, whatever the issues, whatever the things that are making you hesitate, bring it all to God. Lay it all out before Him and say, Lord, burn it up. Let your fire fall on the offering of my life. May I know you. Maybe you don't feel like you know Him. There's not a million miles, He's not a million miles away. Just reach out to Him, reach out to Him now as we respond. And if you want to come here, come forward, someone to pray with you, someone to help you, someone to encourage you, do that because we'd be more than happy and the space is here. Just come as we worship as Jonathan leads us and the team. Come and we will pray together and God's fire will fall upon us. Amen.

Nick Lugg

Erica Lugg

Trump is back og det er vanskelig. Morten har lyst på melk etter å ha sett Babygirl og Vegard har funnet sitt safe word. Produsert av Ingrid Alice Mortensen.

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Sermon Summary: Christmas - God With Us Summary: Nick's sermon delves into the heart of the Christmas story, emphasizing the reality of God's presence in human lives, particularly in challenging circumstances. He challenges the common perception of Christmas as a magical, idealized time, highlighting the often-overlooked struggles and hardships faced by Mary and Joseph. Nick argues that the true essence of Christmas lies in God's incarnation, His decision to become human and enter our world. He emphasizes that God doesn't wait for invitation but actively seeks us, even when we're lost, broken, or unaware of His presence. The sermon draws parallels between Mary's experience and contemporary life, suggesting that even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, we can find hope and worship. Nick encourages listeners to recognize God's closeness, to embrace His grace, and to become agents of God's love in their communities. Key themes explored in the sermon include: God's Immanence: God is not distant or aloof but intimately involved in human lives. The Reality of Christmas: The Christmas story is not merely a fairytale but a powerful narrative of God's love and grace. The Invitation to Worship: Even in the midst of struggle, we can find reasons to worship God. God's Initiative: God takes the initiative to reach out to humanity, regardless of our circumstances. Becoming Agents of God's Love: Christians are called to embody God's love in their communities and the world. Ultimately, the sermon invites listeners to embrace the true meaning of Christmas, to experience God's presence in their lives, and to share His love with others. Transcription Nice to see you all. Happy Christmas. It's Christmas time. There's no need to be afraid. There's a real sense in me that God wanted to say something. I do know, you know, I can put my, I'm not just saying something, I don't know what it is. But the challenge of sensing that and putting it into words and putting it down on paper is a real one. And I was sort of on my third go at this this morning. But as we've worshiped and prayed and heard what's been said and what's been shared, so much of it resonates with what I feel that God has wanted to say. And so I'm just trusting him this morning that he will communicate his word through my efforts. And so we're going to look at a video. I think, have you got a video there for me, Michel? This is from a ministry called Proximity that's to do with the Eden teams. And it's about people that are involved in mission in all sorts of urban settings just as we have our Eden team here. And they've produced a whole load of resources and particularly some resources for Christmas. And this video I found really interesting and inspiring. And so I just want us to look at that as a prelude to what I want to say this morning. And now the angel is nowhere to be seen. And she wakes from a dream with her head down the loo and next down something for the acid, the youngest at antenatal classes. Feeling like a strict smart lump, trying to hide a bump in oversized clothes, waddling down the street with swollen feet, scared witless, wondering whether she's got what it takes to be a mother. Now she knocks on the door of another knuckle, someone else who feels each kick and every elbow flick and wakes up sick, a cousin with stretched hips who's both blessed and broken. And immediately, almost as if obediently, Elizabeth feels heaven and earth kicked and flipped inside her as her heavy belly moans with sympathy and angelic symphony burst from her amniotic sack. And Mary answers back, my soul magnifies the magnificent. It glorifies the glorious for the God who kicks the wall of the uterus who was worshiped from the womb to the God of bedsit rooms of tower blocks of basketball and shots of part took four by fours and shut up shops to the God of tear stained cheeks and grazed knees of caffeinated drinks and quarter pounders with cheese. Praise be to the father of cold and rainy nights of overcrowded buses of flickering street lights in the name of bright white nights and leggings, hoodies, caps and knackered looking jeggings in the name of not living but surviving in the name of ducking and diving in the name of poverty. God comes to me. Wrapped in hand-me-down clothes, dirty nappies and blankets. As the creator of the universe, the maker of all planets is pushed in a boogie and laid in a basket. For he is with us, not against us, one of us not opposed to us. And he has not forgotten the honest or the humble, the straight talking, the musn't grumble. His eye is on the single mum with no disposable income drowning in debt and depression. The OAP try to make ends meet from a pension. Those falling through the cracks, they're the ones who've got his attention. Yes, in a world that don't make sense, he's the golden frankincense overturning tables, turning the world upside down, right side up, bringing heaven to earth with a seasonal burst of Christmas. And in case you missed this, he makes Christmas every day. No, not in the shops or on the telly or the jingle jangle of songs and sleighs and snow. No, in the stomachs of the hungry, in the arms of the lonely, in the hearts of the broken, Christ can be found knocking on doors, kicking on walls of a mother's womb, asking us to make room for the kingdom to be born in us and through us. Glory be to the infinite, magnify the magnificent. Oh my soul, bless the incarnate. Glorify the omnipotent. Praise be to the God who became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood. The gist of that, it's on the super wide version there, so you can't actually see what's happening, but we'll share it later. Yeah, we'll skirt over that. Yeah, so yeah, there's a whole lot of visual stuff to that as well, but there's just a description, hopefully a description of the reality of Christmas and what the first Christmas really meant. The so-called magic of Christmas lifts us in a way out of the reality of midwinter and plants us firmly in this winter wonderland, plays our emotions, our memories, our aspirations, sort of gives us a sense of unreality. It can give us a real mixed bag of emotions. Christmas can be really difficult, can't it? Maybe for people here, Christmas is a really difficult time, not a magical time. It's a time that really challenges all that we go through and makes us think in, perhaps, not in the fairy tale way, but in a really, in a real, in a very difficult way. It can be a desperately difficult time. A lot of artistic license is used in telling and retelling the story of Christmas to make it magical and wonderful and we can left, we left scratch in our head when you actually go to the scripture itself and you read the story of Christmas, you think, how does this match up with what we hear, what we see, what we see on the screens, what we see in our Christmas cards or in our, in the presentation that Christmas, the presentation of Christmas is given to us. Desperately hard, real life struggle of the Christmas story gets lost as it's retold to create the magic and wonder and the sense of unreality. And we need to try and get into the mind of Mary and Joseph. It was nothing other than a desperately difficult and challenging time for them and yet God was in the middle of it all. And I think that's what's been coming through this morning in the worship and the prayers, that sense that God in the middle of the mess, God in the middle of the reality, God in the middle of real life, that's what Christmas is all about. And we need to see if it's possible to get away from the glitz and the glitter and the elves and the snowmen to get a handle on what this story is really telling us because there is power in this story that we can lose. Tradition is wonderful. Celebration is wonderful. Atmosphere is wonderful. But if we lose the power of the story, then we lose everything. We lose the sense that, you know, and if it doesn't actually touch our real life, touch our experience, we think, oh, well, if our experience is only just in evoking a sense of wonder and excitement and childhood memories, then really Christmas is losing something in our experience. And just as Genesis is the foundation for our understanding of our place in the world, we've been going through over these months, a Christmas story is the foundation for our understanding of the purpose of our lives and the nature of our mission. A Christmas story is about heaven's interaction with earth, the unfolding of the greatest story ever told. And so we can't afford to lose it under all the snow and the starlight in the present. It should leave us built and encouraged and strengthened and empowered and ready for the year ahead rather than just nursing a headache in a credit card bill. That's not a good deal when the greatest story ever told, the greatest credit card bill ever seen, doesn't match up. And that's what I like about that video, if we could have seen it fully. It takes what's actually plain in the scripture, takes away all the layers of glitter that have been put on it over the years and it roots it in the experience of real life. The first Christmas was rooted in the experience of a real couple. And it's so hard to get behind what they actually felt away from the magic of the Christmas cards. And many times religious tradition can separate important things from reality. Jesus has a way of connecting and including and uniting things with reality, of bringing us. That's why Christmas is Emmanuel, God with us, not God out there, God somewhere there, God somewhere to be found, but God with us, God coming close, God alongside, God in it with us. The creator of the universe, he said, the maker of all planets is pushed in a buggy and laid in a basket. They had buggies in those days, but you know what I mean, is bringing it into the real life of the everyday. There's nothing separate or aloof or unreachable about this God. He's presented himself in the humblest form and destroyed all natural preconceptions about the way God will introduce himself to us if he does. Which God could actually do that? Who could actually write this? Who could actually imagine this story except that it come from the heart of God himself, that he would become a baby and be born in humility, born in poverty, born against misunderstanding, born in shame, born against the background of a young couple that are thinking, what on earth is going on with our lives? And yet God in the middle of it all, God with us, Emmanuel. Christmas tells us that he doesn't wait to be invited. You know, one of the things that evangelists often have said over the years, I've heard it many times, is that God is a gentleman. He waits to be invited. He waits until we open up our hearts to him and then he comes in. Well, Christmas tells us actually that's not quite true. He doesn't wait to be invited. He comes even when we don't want him. He comes even when we're dead in our sins. He comes even when we're lost in our transgressions. He comes when we're drowning in the confusion of our circumstances and the mess of our lives. He steps into our lives when we didn't even think of inviting him. We didn't even think we wanted him. We perhaps even thought he was responsible for the mess that we're in. And yet he comes in to introduce himself on a normal night, born to a young woman whose life has been thrown into absolute chaos through her encounter with God. You're gonna have a baby, Mary. Oh, good news, let's have a celebration. From that moment, everything went wrong. And yet, when all the pieces fall into place, when she understands the magnitude of what has happened to her and who it is that she's carrying in her womb, what happens? Worship comes out of her heart. Her heart explodes with worship. She glorifies God. I heard Sam Ward from the message trust saying the other day that perhaps we might say, if we were in Mary's position, God, you've ruined my life. But she says, my soul glorifies the Lord. That's the connection. That's what happens when in the middle of that confusion, we meet God. There's not that separation that, you know, how do we work this out? How do we come to a point of worship? In actual fact, that is the moment when she suddenly, her eyes are open. She doesn't have answers to all the questions. She doesn't understand what's happening. She doesn't know what her future holds. She doesn't know what this means to give birth to this baby. She knows that there's a lot of trouble ahead. But at that moment, her heart says, my soul glorifies the Lord. And you see, worship doesn't happen when we've got everything together and we feel ready. Worship happens when we finally see God, see God himself even in the middle of our mess and our chaos and our fear and our insecurity and our shame and our upset and everything else. It's that moment of seeing God when all those other things fall away and say, well, my soul glorifies the Lord. And we stand in the middle of it all with all the debris around us. And we say, God, you are great. You have come into my life. You are God, Emmanuel. You are with me in all of this. If you've ever been on the London Underground, whenever a train pulls into the station and the doors open, there's a recorded voice that says, mind the gap. Sound familiar? I grew up down there, so I know it all. It used to be easy to get to London. Now it's not so easy. Mind the gap. And it made me smile as I thought about this because I realized that there's actually no warning for us when we come to God, say, mind the gap, because there's no gap anymore. God has come right close. And actually, religion, traditional religion relies on there being a gap, relies on there being a chasm, relies on there being something to do in order to cross that divide. And yet, there is no gap anymore. Emmanuel, God with us is not something for those who've got it all together. It is good news of great joy for all the people, often reflected on that. When the angels come, the first thing they do, they don't say, right, let's sit down and talk about how we're going to access this blessing of God. They just say, good news of great joy for all the people. A Savior is born. For who? For all the people. Good news of great joy. And we look at the gap sometimes. We stare at what the gap that we imagine, but there isn't one. Mary had a lot of fear, no doubt. There must have been a lot of tears. There must have been a lot of anguish. There must have been a lot of uncertainty, as I've already said. And yet, in that moment, she realized there was no gap between her and God, that there was no sense that she had to sort all this out. She had to understand it. She had to figure it out. She had to find the keys. She had to take some steps. She had to do a number of things in order that she could get herself to a position where she could open up her heart in worship. It was at that moment that her eyes were opened, she saw God, and she said, my soul glorifies the Lord. And God says, do not be afraid. He means there's nothing to be afraid about. You are free to trust me, free to worship, free to praise. No ifs, no buts, no maybes, no gap. God with us, Immanuel. That's the beauty of Christmas. And we can disqualify ourselves from Christmas. I don't like Christmas, but, you know, life has been difficult. Life is a challenge. There's no magic for me in Christmas, but there is a wonder in God coming to us. It doesn't matter whether we've had a perfect life and a perfect understanding and a perfect experience of Christmas, or everything about it makes us want to run away and hide. Yet, for each of us, there is an opportunity to meet with God because He is God with us, Immanuel. Sometimes when God comes close to us, our first thought can be about sin. Oh no, what about sin? What about my sin? What about my shame? If God knew all about me, then He wouldn't, there wouldn't be this, the invitation would be canceled. But the wonderful thing about God coming without invitation is that He, it's because He already knows. He doesn't wait for the invitation because He knows we're not going to invite Him. He knows that we don't actually qualify, we don't actually have any reason why we should believe that God would actually want our worship, but so He comes to us and He closes that gap. And basically He says, I'm dealing with sin in order that you might be free to worship me. He has dealt with sin so that He can draw close. Good news of great joy for all the people. A Savior is born. That means that all of those things can be set aside in order that we might know God, in order that He might come close. We've never been able to solve the issue of sin and so God does it at His own initiative, comes close to us. So Mary responded as Jesus, as Jesus certainly came close to her, as the Spirit of God came close to her, Mary responded, oh how my soul praises the Lord, how my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For He took notice of His lowly servant girl and from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One is holy and He has done great things for me. He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear Him. His mighty arm has done tremendous things. He has scattered the proud and the haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. He has helped His servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. For He made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever. And so the fantasy Jesus, the Christmas Jesus, the life that is suitable for worship is beyond us. But if we open our eyes we can see Him today. And there might be people here like I said that are thinking, well I can't, it's too far away, the gap is too big. Remember what I've said, there is no gap because Emmanuel has come to us. He comes to your life uninvited. He comes regardless of the situation. He comes regardless of the barriers because He said actually all of those things I've taken them in hand. I'm dealing with them in order that you might come close. And you think well I'm a million miles away from being able to worship like Mary. Imagine how Mary felt at that moment and yet as her eyes were opened her heart magnified the Lord. So the wonderful thing as God draws close is that He allows us to take our eyes off ourselves and to fix them firmly on Him. Matt Britton said in that video, in the name of everything we are, everything that defines our lives, He knows it all. He knows everything about us. There's nothing to hide. There's no point even trying to hide because He knows it all. He sees it all and then He comes close. Shepherds didn't receive the angels after an all night prayer meeting and a sacrificial offering. They were just sat doing what shepherds do, probably telling dodgy stories and lighting fires. And in the middle of it all the angels come and say good news, the Savior is born. It doesn't matter who you are or what your story is, God comes to you today. God comes to you at Christmas and He stays with us. He doesn't just visit for Christmas. Christmas can be a problem can't it with visitors? Lots of people come in. A few murmurs. But God comes to stay, comes to dwell, comes to live amongst us. You might have spent years trying to worship and being dragged down by that nagging sense of unrighteousness. We've been following the story of Abraham in Genesis and the covenant promises God made to him and how God credited his faith to him as righteousness. Those promises are real for us today. May Mary's last line in her song is simply this, for He has made this promise to our ancestors to Abraham and his children forever. We are living in the good of the promises God made to Abraham. The Mary's song can be our song. I'm just going to quote from that video. In a world that doesn't make sense, He's the gold and the frankincense. Overturning tables, turning the world upside down, right side up, bringing heaven to earth with a seasonal burst of Christmas. And in case you missed this, He makes Christmas every day. No, not in the shops or on the telly or the jingle-jangle of songs and sleighs and snow. No, in the stomachs of the hungry, in the arms of the lonely, in the hearts of the broken, Christ can be found. Knocking on doors, kicking on walls of a mother's womb, asking us to make room for a kingdom to be born in us and through us. And so we need to see for ourselves what Christmas means. Don't disqualify ourselves ever. Christmas is the great leveler. It's the thing that opens up the doors, the opportunity that Jesus says, I am coming. I am coming to you regardless. He isn't invited. He doesn't come according to our timetable. He doesn't come according to our agenda. He comes according to His will and to His purpose. And so as we see for ourselves what it means for Christ to be born among us, our hearts sing with what that means for us. But it also wakes us up to what we are about, that this Christmas, our purpose, our task, whether as individuals or as a church, is to bring Christ to birth again in our communities and in our world. Give birth to the kingdom, to the reality of God in our world. So we're not just celebrating Christmas or telling the story of Christmas, but we're agents of Christmas. We're people who have seen that God has drawn close and we know that actually He draws close to anybody who will see Him. Bringing Christ to birth in the heart of our neighborhood. Don't shut Him away. Let's see Him live in our communities. He makes Christmas every day in the stomachs of the hungry, in the arms of the lonely, in the hearts of the broken. Christ can be found knocking on doors, kicking on walls of a mother's womb, asking us to make room for a kingdom to be born in us and through us. That's the reality of Christmas. Applicable in any and every situation. Applicable in every tragic situation. Applicable in every lost situation. Applicable in every situation where people think, actually I've made a mess of it. And yet Jesus comes. Not only to us, but to all who will see Him. So we can find Jesus today in the midst of everything we have going on. And be part of seeing Him brought to birth in our families, in our workplaces, and in our neighborhoods. That's good news. Good news of Christmas. Good news of great joy for all the earth. A Savior is born. I don't know where you stand today, whether you've never, ever considered it, whether Jesus has been locked up in the stories of the past, in the stories of tradition. But maybe today might be a day like Mary had where your eyes open and your heart is ready to see and to accept that actually Jesus is not just this huge figure that people all around the world worship, but He's your Savior. He's one who draws close to you. He's Emmanuel, God with you in the midst of everything that you think of and everything that you come up with that says, actually not me. I don't qualify. I'm not good enough. Everything that you come up with, every barrier that you put in place, He sweeps away and says, actually, I'm coming. There is no gap. There is no distance. Emmanuel, God with us. Amen.

Sermon Summary: The School of Hard Knocks Sermon Text: Genesis 29 Sermon Summary: In today's sermon, Nick delves into the challenging narrative of Jacob's journey in Genesis 29. He explores the themes of deception, blessing, and the unexpected twists and turns life can take. The sermon begins by recounting Jacob's deceitful act of stealing his brother Esau's blessing. This deception leads to Jacob's flight from his home and his subsequent journey to Paddan Aram. As Jacob arrives at Paddan Aram, he encounters Rachel, Laban's daughter, and falls in love with her. He agrees to work for Laban for seven years in exchange for Rachel's hand in marriage. However, on his wedding night, Jacob is tricked by Laban and married to Leah, Rachel's older sister. Despite this setback, Jacob continues to work for Laban, eventually marrying Rachel as well. The sermon highlights the contrast between Jacob's love for Rachel and his indifference towards Leah. Nick then shifts the focus to the concept of "the school of hard knocks." He suggests that Jacob's experiences, filled with challenges and disappointments, are a form of spiritual training. The blessing that Jacob received from his father, while significant, did not guarantee a smooth and easy life. Instead, it set him on a path of discovery and growth. The sermon emphasizes that the blessings in our lives may not always manifest in the ways we expect. It's through the challenges and hardships we face that we truly learn and grow as individuals. Nick encourages the congregation to view their own struggles as opportunities for spiritual development, rather than as setbacks. The sermon also highlights the importance of perseverance and trust in God. Even in the face of adversity, Jacob's faith in God remained steadfast. His story serves as a reminder that God's plans for our lives are often greater than our own. Bible References: Genesis 29 Key Themes: Deception and its consequences The nature of blessings and their unexpected manifestations The concept of "the school of hard knocks" Perseverance and trust in God The importance of spiritual growth through challenges The unseen blessings and purposes within life's hardships Conclusion: The sermon concludes by encouraging the congregation to embrace their own "school of hard knocks" as a path towards spiritual growth and a deeper relationship with God. It reminds them that even in the midst of challenges, God's love and faithfulness remain steadfast. Transcript We're on Genesis 29, by the way, racing through. We are in the middle of coming into a collection of passages that are challenging, to say the least. I knew someone some years ago who, they went to prison, actually, and while they were in prison, they didn't have anything to read, so they decided to read the Bible. It was the first time that they'd really engaged with the Bible, and so they read it over and over and over again. And he got really fascinated by these passages in Genesis, and he said, well, and his honest assessment of it was, it's like Coronation Street. So much going on, and so many things that you think, well, what's going on there? You couldn't write this stuff, do you know what I mean? But obviously somebody has. But my title this morning is The School of Hard Knocks, and we're dealing with Jacob, who has stolen the blessing, if you like, or taken an opportunity to get a blessing that wasn't actually rightfully his, and yet he conspired with his mother to get that blessing from his father, and then as a result, as we've heard over the weeks, has had to flee away from his brother, who wants to kill him for what he's done. And so he's on this long, hard journey that has been reflected many times, doesn't actually look like the blessing he was expecting. This is challenging stuff. And so, in Genesis 29, we've got Jacob arriving at Paddan Aram, and I'm going to read it, we've got a little bit of time, I'm going to read it, because I know we can do a synopsis and we can, but unless we actually read it in the Scripture, we don't always grasp what we're talking about. I could start talking about something and think, where did he get that from? So it's good that we root what we say in the actual passage. So then Jacob hurried on, finally arriving in the land of the east. He saw a well in the distance. Three flocks of sheep and goats lay in an open field beside it, waiting to be watered, but a heavy stone covered the mouth of the well. It was the custom there to wait for all the flocks to arrive before removing the stone and watering the animals. Afterward, the stone would be placed back over the mouth of the well. Jacob went over to the shepherds and asked, where are you from, my friends? We are from Haran, they answered. Do you know a man there named Laban, the grandson of Nahor, he asked. Yes, we do, they replied. Is he doing well, Jacob asked. Yes, he's well, they answered. It's fascinating, isn't it? Look, here comes his daughter Rachel with the flock now. Jacob said, look, it's still broad daylight, too early to round up the animals. Why don't you water the sheep and goats so they can get back out to pasture? Lots of detail. We can't water the animals until all the flocks have arrived, they replied. Then the shepherds move the stone from the mouth of the well and we water all the sheep and the goats. You get the gist. Jacob was still, beginning to choke on it, Jacob was still talking with them when Rachel arrived with her father's flock, for she was a shepherd. And because Rachel was his cousin, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and because the sheep and goats belonged to his uncle Laban, Jacob went over to the well and moved the stone from its mouth and watered his uncle's flock. Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and he wept aloud. No comment about what Rachel did. He explained to Rachel that he was her cousin on her father's side, the son of her aunt Rebecca, so Rachel quickly ran and told her father Laban. As soon as Laban heard that his nephew Jacob had arrived, he ran out to meet him. He embraced and kissed him and brought him home. When Jacob had told him his story, Laban explained, you really are my own flesh and blood. After Jacob had stayed with Laban for about a month, Laban said to him, you couldn't work for me without pay just because we are relatives. Tell me how much your wages should be. Now Laban had two daughters. The older daughter was named Leah, and the younger one was Rachel. There was no sparkle in Leah's eyes, but Rachel had a beautiful figure and a lovely face. Since Jacob was in love with Rachel, he told her father, I'll work for you for seven years if you'll give me Rachel, your younger daughter, as my wife. Agreed, Laban replied. I'd rather give her to you than to anyone else. Stay and work with me. So Jacob worked seven years to pay for Rachel, but his love for her was so strong that it seemed to him but a few days. Finally, the time came for him to marry her. I have fulfilled my agreement, Jacob said to Laban. Now give me my wife so I can sleep with her. So Laban invited everyone in the neighbourhood and prepared a wedding feast. But that night, when it was dark, Laban took Leah to Jacob, thank you, and he slept with her. Laban had given Leah a servant, Zilpa, to be her maid. But when Jacob woke up in the morning, it was Leah. What have you done to me, Jacob raised at Laban? I worked seven years for Rachel. Why have you tricked me? It's not our custom here to marry off a younger daughter ahead of the firstborn, Laban replied. But wait until the bridal week is over, then we'll give you Rachel, too. Provided you promise to work for another seven years. Laban's onto something here, isn't he? So Jacob agreed to work seven more years. A week after Jacob had married Leah, Laban gave him Rachel, too. Laban gave Rachel a servant, Bilhar, to be her maid. So Jacob slept with Rachel, too, and he loved her much more than Leah. He then stayed and worked for Laban the additional seven years. When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he enabled her to have children, but Rachel could not conceive. So Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said the Lord has noticed my misery and now my husband will love me. She soon became pregnant again and gave birth to another son. She named him Simeon, for she said the Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me another son. Then she became pregnant a third time and gave birth to another son. He was named Levi, for she said surely this time my husband will feel affection for me since I have given him three sons. Once again Leah became pregnant and gave birth to another son. She named him Judah, for she said, now I will praise the Lord. And then she stopped having children. Amen? You can see why they say, when we've got the rotor going forward about who's going to speak on a Sunday morning, of all the series, this is the one that gets people flicking through the Bible reading. Where's my passage? What's it going to be about? I know Andy's already researching for the next one. The school of hard knocks, focused on Jacob. I mean, Jacob, I mean the mind boggles. I'm not sure what was in his mind or what he thought the blessing would mean, but clearly things weren't working out as he planned. Here was Jacob the trickster, the one who had conspired to get the blessing, and suddenly he finds what goes around comes around, and he's in the middle of a situation where somebody else has double-crossed him. He's thinking, this isn't fair. This isn't the way it's supposed to be. This isn't what happens to blessed people. This is something, you know, I'm Jacob. I'm the big man. I carry the blessing of my father, and yet things weren't working out as he planned. They do say, be careful what you wish for, and if Jacob thought that the blessing he received meant a passport to an easy and trouble-free life, then he was mistaken, sadly mistaken. For him, I suppose, at the outset, the blessing, that moment where he said to his father, give me the, or he sort of put himself in the place of his brother to receive that blessing, he thought that would be it. That would be all his problems solved. That would be all he needed in life, that moment of blessing, laying on of hands, you are blessed, go forward. But in actual fact, from God's perspective, he was only signing on for a lifetime of training. He was signing on for a lifetime of discovering what it means to carry the blessing of God on your life. He was signing on for training through the school of hard knocks. And we do need that perspective on our lives as we go forward. It's so difficult sometimes to come to terms with the challenges of life, and yet if we can understand that actually we carry the blessing. Jacob didn't lose the blessing. The blessing didn't slip from him, and he had to keep going back to find it and look for it again. He carried the blessing permanently, but yet the lifestyle that he led him into was challenging and frustrating and disappointing. It made him angry. It made him upset. It cost him. It was painful. There was all of that that he had to go through in order to discover what it means to be somebody who carries the blessing of God on his life. And if we can have that perspective, we are blessed. Ephesians says you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. You have been blessed. We carry it all. And yet when we look at our lives, we think, well, this actually looks a little bit less like a lifetime of blessing and a little bit more like the school of hard knocks. Jacob's blessing was assured. No one was going to take it away from him, but it went way beyond just receiving it in that moment on that day. He had to discover what it was to be a child of God. And God has goals for our lives that are way higher than anything we can think of for ourselves. Probably our aim is to have as little challenge as possible and to go through life avoiding challenges and obstacles. That would be natural. Take the path of least resistance. Nobody wants trouble and difficulty, do they? And so when they come, it's easy to get frustrated, it's easy to get angry, it's easy to even become bitter. But it was actually the school of hard knocks that was shaping and guiding Jacob in the direction God wanted him to go. He was becoming the father of the nation of Israel. There was a promise given to Abraham, but Jacob was the one who was beginning to see it come into reality. His children were the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel. The whole of world history was unfolding from this man's life. And yet, things weren't working out from his perspective, they weren't working out as he hoped and as he expected. What does your life look like from the inside out? As I stand here and look out on you, I can see that you're all, you've all got it. You're all just serenely moving on in the life of faith. There's no trouble here, is there? There's no challenge. There's no difficulty. Nothing makes you anxious or worries you. There's nothing that makes you scratch your head and you think, what on earth is going on here? None of that for us, is there, at MCF? No, no, no. So, but maybe from the inside out, you think actually, if only you knew the half of it. If only you knew what I wake up with and what I go to bed at night thinking about, then you'd know that actually life is challenging and life is difficult for me. Things haven't worked out as you thought they might. You might be worried or anxious, disappointed, angry, confused. You thought, well, maybe for somebody that is blessed like me, maybe things would have been easier for me. Maybe I could have expected to have a few more answers when I pray. Maybe some of the situations that I pray for, maybe some of them would have changed a little bit, except they haven't. And yet the perspective says, actually, we know that we are blessed people. We know that God hasn't forgotten us. We know that the blessing hasn't slipped from our shoulders. And so maybe our perspective can change and say, actually, that is, maybe this school of hard knocks that we go through is the very thing that will shape us, that will squeeze us, that will mould us, that will turn us into the children of God that God wants us to be. It's very difficult to give a message like this because this is the sort of advice that nobody wants to get, is it? You don't say, it's all right, it's the school of hard knocks, God's making you a better person. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and all of that stuff. And nobody, yeah, thanks a lot. I remember reading a book by Bill Bryson called A Walk in the Woods, and he was discovering all the things that were to be frightened of on the Appalachian Trail. And one of the things was bears. And there was advice to hikers saying that if, and he was reading the guidebook, he said, and so when confronted by a bear, don't panic, stay calm, and stand still. And he said, you just know that that was written by somebody sat behind a keyboard and not stood in front of a bear. And his comment was, thanks a lot, professor. And that can be the danger when we give this sort of perspective on life. You can look at me and say, thanks a lot, professor. But you don't know how hard it is, you don't know how difficult it is, and the truth is I don't. There are many things that people face. I wouldn't even pretend to comprehend how challenging and how mountainous the things look like that are in front of people, even in this room. Things that we're wrestling with, things that we go through. But yet, we can't get away from the perspective of the Word that says if we take a step back, we can actually see actually we are blessed people, we are secure, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we belong to God through faith in Christ. And so therefore, we can trust God through the school of hard knocks, through the difficulties, through the challenges that we go through. It's just a question of what we think blessing looks like in our lives. At the end of it all, what we know about God will not be downloaded in a prayer. I'm fully for that moment when somebody says, could you pray for me? Or I'll receive prayer and we look to God to do something in our lives in that moment. We trust God for that. We trust God for miracles and miraculous intervention and all of that. But at the same time, it's not just about downloading something in a moment of time and say, now all my problems are gone. In actual fact, sometimes it's just the beginning. As we receive that impetus from God, that touch from God, we then go forward in life and everything happens to challenge what God has done. I remember somebody saying, when I prayed for patience, God sent everything that wound me up and made me impatient. Carl Beach is coming in a few weeks' time. He'll tell you his own story, but he's had his troubles with health and he's very open about the fact he's had young onset Parkinson's disease. And he told me, one prayer I had, he said, being a public speaker, one prayer I had was, Lord, don't let it affect my voice. And it's the very thing that has been affected. And yet, as you follow his journey, you see how God is using that, not only to teach himself about God, but how he's helping thousands and thousands of other people through something he's invented. He'll probably tell us all about it. That through the struggle, through the hard knock of God giving him the opposite of what he prayed for, he's discovered more about God. Erica spoke about Jacob meeting God in a certain place, not an obvious place, not an easy place, but a certain place. And we know that God can be met in every certain place. And you could say, genuinely and with justification, you don't know my situation. And I don't. And you don't know mine. But we have that ability to meet God in the certain place. Nothing is wasted in our lives. Nothing is wasted. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, height nor depth, death nor life, angels or demons. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let it be our prayer. I want to know you Lord. I want to know you Lord. And many of us, some of us, we had baptism last week, wonderful time. People embarking out on a life of faith. We pray for people and bless them as they enter into that. And some of us old timers can sit back and think, oh, you know, this is a long time since I was baptized. There is a prayer that we need to pray every single day, every single week. I want to know you Lord, whatever that takes. I want to know you Lord, but our hearts need to be prepared for what that might be like. It's an opportunity to know God. One of the most helpful bits of advice I ever heard was, let's meet everything with calmness. I'm not very good at that, meeting everything with calmness, but it's a good reminder that actually we can afford to meet everything with calmness because God has got us in the palm of his hand. There's a nice little bit of artwork that somebody did once of somebody hanging from a rope and God sort of holding onto the rope like this and the hand of God was holding it and they were doing their best to cut through the rope and then obviously the inference was they were going to drop. And then as you pan out from the picture, the other hand of God is underneath the catch. There's safety in the hands of God to the point that we can trust him whatever happens to us. Meet everything with calmness. Because if we take the long view, then our testimony will be, God, you'll do all things well. Maybe you can't understand something in this moment in time, cannot understand it. What are you doing, Lord? What is going on? What is happening to me? But that calmness says, just wait. Just wait. Keep walking. Keep moving. Keep going. Keep embracing. Keep trusting. Because at the end of it all, we'll say, God, you do all things well. The main character of the story is Jacob. Probably, if you were asked to assess the other, the female lead might be Rachel. And somewhere in the background there's Leah, the older sister. What a sad story. Treated and mistreated by her father, by her husband, by everybody. She's totally disregarded. She's just a name. She had no sparkle in her eyes. Even the Bible says that. Rachel was really beautiful, but it's Leah. No sparkle. What a way to be remembered. But like in all things, if we go to the margins, if we go to the excluded, if we go to the forgotten, that's often where we find God. And she's thrown into a situation that she wouldn't have chosen for herself. She's been given to a man to marry who didn't want her and didn't choose her. And what we see is that God's focus was on her. In fact, more than anyone else. In verse 31, it says, when the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he enabled her to have children. The Lord saw that she was unloved. There's no grace in the description of her life or the value of her life that was given before that, but the Lord placed value on her life. He enabled her to have children. She was lost in the system. She was a very small cog in a large machine. Not second choice, but no choice at all. And God saw her in her distress. One of the most moving things I heard one time was when we were in Zambia and sat with a family that had been through, they'd had a really successful business, and they'd gone through such turmoil, and they'd lost everything. And they were ill, and they were struggling, and they were suffering. And we had some money had been given, and we went to see them just to help them. And they realized that what they could do with it was they could pay their telephone bill, because their telephone was being cut off. And this was a family that had really prospered and done great things. And then as we sat with them and gave them this gift and prayed with them, the lady said, Now I know that God sees. And I think, wow, that's really, really powerful, because God sees us in our distress. You don't have to be loud or in the forefront for God to see you, for God to move on your behalf. You don't have to be the popular ones, the talented ones, the noticeable ones, because God blessed Leah through the circumstances she went through, through her own school of hard knocks. And she started, even in the middle of all of this, gave birth to four children for Jacob. He wasn't that bothered about marrying her, but he still didn't mind her giving birth to four children for him. And she gave birth to a son and named him Reuben, for she said, The Lord has noticed my misery, and now my husband will love me. What a sad prayer. The name Reuben is related to the Hebrew word for see. I don't know Hebrew. I've looked it up. She poured all of her pain into the naming of her child. The Lord has noticed, and now my husband will love me, because what she saw the movement of God in her life as a key to actually her getting what she wanted. If God blesses me, then he'll give me what I want. Sadly, it didn't happen. She thought if only, like we do, if only we had, if only things were different, if only circumstances were changed, then if only because of this, maybe now God has seen us, so God will now do what I want him to do. But there was no breakthrough. Reuben was one of the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, but she didn't know that. She was just thinking about her situation. She saw the hand of God and wanted him to change her circumstances. Why do we worship God? Why is it just a means to an end? Lord, if I worship you, if I give to you, if I pray to you, will you give me what I want? It's like a, like a, you know, put our money in the slot and pull the lever and see if we can get what we want from God. But God didn't, and God doesn't mind leaving us, scratching our heads and wondering what is going on, because he has a higher purpose in mind for our lives. Her second son, Simeon, she said, the Lord heard I was unloved and has given me another son. She's working it out. Oh, I've got another son because the Lord has blessed me. In her world, the hand of God, God was just concerned about her situation, and we can find ourselves in that frame of mind very easily. Simeon is related to the word here, indicating she was really fixed on her need for God to hear her pain. She now had proof that God had heard her, and therefore he was going to do what she wanted and what she needed him to do. Her problems were going to be solved. She was connected now to God. She knew that God had heard her. Problem over. No breakthrough. Nothing changed. A third time, she became pregnant and gave birth to Levi, saying, surely this time my husband will feel affection for me since I have given him three sons. I deserve something back for this because I have given him three sons. God will now bless me. My husband will feel affection for me. Levi is related to the word attach, longing for her husband to be attached to her. She disregarded all that was going on in her life, focused on her need for God to do something about her pain. And finally, she gave birth to Judah, and something changed in her at that moment. I don't know what it was, but something changed, and she said, now I will praise the Lord. She didn't mention her husband anymore. She didn't mention her pain. She didn't mention her bitterness. She didn't mention her need for things to change. She looked at her fourth child and said, now I will praise the Lord. She acknowledged and praised God. Judah is related to the word for praise, and she was finally free of her anxious pursuit of her husband and freely praised the Lord. This was her breakthrough. This was her freedom, and actually this is our freedom as well. And I hesitate, and I'm nervous to put it through because I know how difficult it is. When somebody comes and says, actually, put aside your worries and just praise the Lord, you think, thanks a lot. It doesn't really work like that. Sometimes we like worry. Sometimes I can find that worry is a comfort. If you think, people say, don't worry about it. You say, well, what am I going to do then if I don't worry about it? Jesus himself said, don't worry about this life, what you'll eat, what you'll wear, all the very things that we worry about, problems that could happen, catastrophizing situations, going to the end of the line and saying, oh, if this happens and this happens and this happens, then we're all going to be destroyed and everything's going to be finished and it's all going to be hopeless, and I don't even know why we even bother praising God because it's just not going to work out all right. And yet the freedom that Leah found, the freedom that we will find, will be the freedom where we started this worship service. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Give a sacrifice of praise to God, unconditional, unattached, no strings attached, whatever. Lord, you have been good to me. And many of us have prayers that we've carried for a long time and God is leading us to a moment where we can lay them down and lift up empty arms to God. Give that sacrifice of praise. It's so hard to do, but so liberating to do it. And you know what? The reason why we don't like the advice, the reason why we don't like the people like me coming along and saying, well, it's all right, just praise the Lord, is because it doesn't work like that. Like I've said, it doesn't happen in a moment, a moment of blessing, a moment of revelation, a moment of inspiration. It took Leah four children. How long is that? Quite long. It's more than four times nine months, isn't it? It took her years to get to that moment. And she didn't even know the process she was going through. She didn't even know she was on a slow transformation. She was being squeezed like that Play-Doh machines, where you put them in and you squeeze them and something comes out a different shape. You know what I'm talking about. So she was being transformed and she didn't even know. And yet she ended up at this moment when Judah was born and she said, now I will praise the Lord. And you see what God can do, that the milestones in her painful journey, the children named after her pain actually took their place in the history of the world. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Levi and Judah. Levi was the head of the tribe of Levi, which was the priestly tribe, the whole tribe that would minister to God and would minister on behalf of the nation and would minister to the world. And Judah is the royal tribe from whom came Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah. And so Leah in many ways was the mother of the tribe of Judah. And she had no idea. All she could think about was her pain and her difficulty and whatever. And yet she got through to the end of the process. She said, now I will praise the Lord. And yet in the meantime, it doesn't mean nothing is wasted. All those children before when she was in bitterness and pain and anxiety and distress, they still took their place according to the purposes of God. And God will work out his purposes in our lives, not only what he does in us. All she wanted was her husband to love her. God wanted more from her. And sometimes all we want is one thing that we're fixed on, and yet God wants more from us. And God will produce more from us. And he will establish more in us if we will go through that process. And in actual fact, he puts us through that process whether we choose it or not. Leah didn't, she wouldn't, she didn't respond at a conference and said, now I'm going to go through this transformation. She was just put on the school of hard knocks. And she got through it, and she ended up in a good place, in a free place, in a healthy spiritual moment where she said, now I'm going to praise the Lord. And lo and behold, all her children, and she even had more later on, that's for somebody else to deal with, you know, there was all these tribes of Israel. But what a testimony that Judah, Jesus' own tribe, she was the mother. She had been squeezed by bitter circumstances into a woman who learned to praise God and put her faith in him, and in the process God was not only working his purposes for her life, but for the whole world. Remember, nothing is wasted. And sometimes we won't even know until we look back at eternity what it's all about. But we're going to have the stories to tell. It's not about a moment of blessing and God did this and that and the other. And sometimes we can be discouraged by victorious things. You know, we say, oh, it's all great, everything worked out, because we actually are all going through the school of hard knocks. But over the long period, the long process, God does all things well. Amen. Good. Yeah. Let's praise God.

Hva kan vi gjøre med søsken som krangler? Er det greit at de krangler? Hva skal vi som foreldre gjøre, når det krysser en grense for hva som er vanlig og akseptabelt for vår familie? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we explore the transformative journey of Master of Public Health students Natalia Ramon and Lee-Ann Lugg. They share their immersive experience in Nairobi, Kenya, where they partnered with UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) and Strathmore Business School (SBS) for a unique study abroad course called Behavioral Communication Strategies for Global Epidemics (BCSE) led by Drs. Chris Dickey (NYU GPH), Ben Ngoye (SBS), and Erma Manoncourt (NYU GPH, ex-UNICEF). Discover how they tackled real-world public health challenges, developed actionable strategies, and built meaningful connections with local health professionals. From the streets of Nairobi to critical discussions on global health, this episode showcases the impact of experiential learning and international collaboration. Read more about this course: https://publichealth.nyu.edu/events-news/news/2024/02/07/new-strategies-nairobi-behavioral-communication-strategies-global To learn more about the NYU School of Global Public Health, and how our innovative programs are training the next generation of public health leaders, visit http://www.publichealth.nyu.edu.

Celebra 5 años del Gosip con nosotras! https://lacomedia.cl/evento/el-gosip-5-anos-de-chisme/ Se viene la epidemia de memes de Julio: ¿cuál es la etiqueta correcta para evitarlos?, Cesarito versus Vesta "No me digan Basta" Lugg, Sabrina Carpenter: ¿la próxioma Taylor Swift? Azealia Banks dice que sí. Charli XCX le gana a todas con brat, Lorde tiene su moment en el moment de Charli, Carla Jara y Diego Urrutia: momento Pete Davidson, Coté López requete jura que ahora sí que sí se separa de NotMago, Daniela Aránguiz se burla de las flores que Mago Valdivia le envió a Maite Orsini, ¿QUÉ ES ESTA ORDINARIEZ?: Raquel Argandoña versus Daniella Campos, SIGNOS: Chilenos Cancer (spoiler: son casi todos evil), BONUS: ¿quién es el famoso que meó el jardín de la tejedora y por qué todos dicen que es Neme? Visita www.patreon.com/elgosip para más contenido iconic!

ÖVERSÄTTNING: Ann Jäderlund UPPLÄSNING: Ann Jäderlund Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. DIKT: Ur ”Mariabiotoperna” av Casper André LuggDIKTSAMLING: Mariabiotoperna (Rámus förlag, 2023)MUSIK: Danska stråkkvartetten: Sonderho bridal trilogy: Nr 3EXEKUTÖR: Danska stråkkvartetten

She's a Vesta girl in a Vesta world! Y el resto sólo vivimos en él… La empresaria y rostro indiscutido de la farándula pasó por nuestro estudio para contarnos de su nueva canción (cargada de tecito), de su paso por los hitos culturales que definen las conversaciones en los medios y de pasar de hacerse famosa en una serie adolescente a formar parte del imaginario colectivo nacional. Vesta artista, Vesta empresaria, Vesta Diosa! Presentado por

Presentamos a uno de los nuevos talentos del sello - 2K00 de 777 Events, desde Puerto Rico, en Orlando, FL junto al DJ y Productor - Matteo Lugg. Hablamos de futuros eventos y proyectos, y más. / Presenting a new label talent - 2K00, part of 777 Events and from Puerto Rico, at Orlando, FL together with the DJ and Producer - Matteo Lugg. Talking about next projects and events, and more.

Rich talked about a tech support scam that takes over your computer. When in doubt, press Control + Alt + Delete at the same time on your keyboard, then select your web browser and hit End Task. You can also turn off your computer or restart it. Whatever you do, don't give access to your computer, or download any software.Jennifer in Laguna Hills wants to know what to do with old cell phones. Rich recommends checking out this list of places that take them as a donation. Rich also likes Gizmogo, Best Buy Mail in Recycling Boxes, EcoATM.Marta in Laguna Nigel wants to know if there's an Android app that lets you set audio reminders by voice and have it announce the reminder at a certain time. Rich recommended Talking Recordable Voice Alarm, Talking Alarm Clock Beyond and Voice Memo Reminder but all of them require some level of manual time setting for the alarm. Listeners recommend using Alexa for this functionality!Rich used Lugg to get his new furniture delivered and it mostly worked out great. He then sold his old couches on OfferUp and the process was excellent.Sharon in Williamsburg, Ohio wants to know how to improve her Wi-Fi signal. Rich recommends moving the router to a more central location in the room.David in Orange wants to know why his phone number is out there.Google is making it easier to remove search results about you that contain your personal information.Nick in Anaheim wants to know if his computer was hijacked by ransomware.Kimber Streams of Wirecutter shares top affordable laptop and Chromebook picks under $1000.Patricia is in Southern California wants to know why her Wi-Fi is still showing even though she cut the cable to her box and cancelled service.David in Cerritos wants to know how to find the phone number of an old friend. Rich recommends Sunshine Contacts, Google Contacts, Siri Search on iPhone and WhitePages.com to do a reverse search of someone's address or name to find their phone number.Here's how to set up vertical app drawer scrolling on a Samsung phone.Liz in Riverside wants to know how to get rid of old hard drives from her deceased husband's computers. Rich recommends an e-waste recycling facility that offers hard drive shredding, or an application called DBAN or similar. Listener Tom recommends freeware called CBL Data Shredder.Verizon now has a $25 unlimited plan through Visible.Scam alert: Watch out for bogus QR codes to pay for parking lots and meters.Nina in San Bernardino wants to know why she can't access her Outlook email through Chrome. An extension might be interfering, check them here.Ron asks if there is a free QR Code generator that will take an iPhone contact entry and turn it into a QR code that the recipient can scan and add to their contacts? Rich likes HiHello. See his card here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's International Women's Day and the theme for 2023 is ‘embracing equity', but how does this apply to photography and content creation? Canon Ambassador and professional photographer, Ilvy Njiokiktjien speaks to the Fashion Director of Vanity Fair, Nicole Chapoteau, as well as content creator, Rosie Lugg, who uses TikTok and Instagram to achieve success in photography, to find out what challenges they're facing in their industries.Join Ilvy as she discusses representation and equity with our guests in this special International Women's Day episode.Thanks so much for listening!Follow us on Twitter: https://canon.sm/pro-twitterJoin us on Facebook: https://canon.sm/pro-facebookEngage with us on Instagram: https://canon.sm/pro-instagramConnect with us on LinkedIn: https://canon.sm/pro-linkedinWatch us on YouTube: https://canon.sm/youtube

4 de los 10 artistas del sello disquero en 1 mismo podcast, hablando del gran próximo evento en agenda, Grooves By The Seas, a celebrarse el sábado 4 de Marzo del 2023 en la Playa Poza del Obispo en Arecibo, Puerto Rico. También dialogando sobre cómo apoyar la escena colectivamente, recalcando el trabajo de todos en la escena. / 4 of the 10 record label artists at 1 podcast, talking about the next big event, Grooves By The Seas - March 4, 2023 at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Also emphasizing about how to support this music scene all together.

Klagomuren på P1. Petters barndomsmobbare Tobbe gör entré. Tom har startat ett medborgargarde.Kom ihåg att den ideella organisationen BROTTSOFFERJOUREN erbjuder dig kostnadsfritt stöd om du blivit utsatt för brott, är vittne eller anhörig. Ta hand om varandra i jul!

We discuss comments from Braden Lenzy and Josh Lugg as well as whether Tyler Buchner should play in a bowl game if he's healthy, should Notre Dame and Boston College play more often, comments from Lane Kiffin, and should the Dallas Cowboys sign Odell Beckham Jr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Skrikstäda huset för 200 spänn. Lugg eller inte? Har Sigge skägg? Vad är ens skägg? Harvey Weinstein. Kathy Hilton, Lisa Rinna, Anna Wahlgren. Det ständiga jämförandet.

An unexpectedly fire duo joins us in this week's episode! Voice actor, producer, and screenwriter Yuri Lowenthal best known as the voice of Sasuke in Naruto, teenage Ben Tennyson in Ben 10, and Peter Parker/Spider Man in various video games has an exciting new project. Yuri just worked together with LA hip hop artist Big Lugg to create an album that is, in its own way, a first of its kind: the hip-hop album FIRE STYLE! (featuring the cast of Naruto). Now, Yuri and Big Lugg are giving us the lowdown on how it happened!Yuri shares how this unexpected collaboration started thanks when Big Lugg reached out to him with an uncanny request. He then goes on to tell us about how they started their collaboration which resulted in the creation of the 2-minute track Prayer which definitely thrilled Naruto fans! Big Lugg also joins us to share some insights and anecdotes about working with the Naruto cast while creating the album. Timestamps:[1:44] The message that started it all[5:01] What makes FIRE STYLE great according to Yuri[7:31] Big Lugg talks about the charities that benefit from the Saints Row app[9:26] Big Lugg talks about the natural progression of the collaboration[16:16] How you can show your support for the album[24:12] What it was like working with the cast of Naruto for FIRE STYLE!Sign up for exclusive updates to the show! https://mailchi.mp/ca034f33e0b3/alicynswonderlandFollow Alicyn:Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/alicyn/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alicynpackardTwitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/alicynLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicynpackardFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/alicynpackardartistWebsite: https://www.alicynpackard.com/Follow Yuri Lowenthal: YouTube: https://www.facebook.com/YuriLowenthalFacebook: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYuriLowenthalInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/yurilowenthal/Twitter: https://twitter.com/yurilowenthalFollow Big Lugg:Website: https://biglugg.comFacebook: https://facebook.com/bigluggInstagram: https://instagram.com/bigluggmusicTikTok: https://tiktok.com/bigluggTwitter: https://twitter.com/bigluggmusicListen to FIRE STYLE! here: https://open.spotify.com/album/09Oy3gVqsZjEuT24qTttyy?autoplay=true

This week on The Driven Chat Podcast, John Marcar and Racheal Downie sit with Envision Racing Formula E Team at their headquarters at Silverstone headquarters ahead of the London Formula E race. This special episode features four very different conversations with four very different personalities - each of whom has a very special role to play in the team.First up, John and Rachael speak to the team president and MD, Sylvain Filippi, who shares his fantastic outlook on life and how his outgoing approach to work granted him an extraordinary career.Driver Nick Cassidy is up next and shares his experience of driving with Envision. He also tells the story about his journey within motorsport, including the big decision to relocate to the other side of the world to Europe from New Zealand.Our third guest is the sensational Alice Powell. Alice is a development driver for Envision but also has a fascinating motorsport career as a pioneer for female drivers. Alice shares a very open and honest account of her experience as a lady in an often male-dominated sport.We round up our conversations with Envision's technical director Mike Lugg who shares his career journey from V8 Supercars in Australia to later looking after some of the world's most technologically advanced racing cars.Find the episode in the usual podcast places and see the entire back catalogue at drivenchat.comGet in touch with the show via email - podcast@drivenchat.com or slip into our DM's on your preferred social feed, and don't forget to check out our youtube channel via YouTube.com/DrivenChat, to see some premium visual car content!The Driven Chat podcast is brought to you by Paramex Digital - for more information on Driven Chat, visit www.drivenchat.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What do garden gnomes, the #BlackLivesMatter black squares of June 2020 Instagram, and formulaic pop songs all have in common? They're kitsch. In episode 56 of Overthink, Ellie and David investigate the history of kitsch as an aesthetic category distinct from art. How does the superficiality and mass-reproducibility of kitsch explain its uses as a tool of fascist propaganda? They discuss the American cultural instinct to deploy inspirational quotes in response to national trauma, kitsch as an antidote to working class alienation, the decline of emotionally significant, critical art, and more.Works DiscussedClement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch”Tomáš Kulka, Kitsch and ArtCatherine A. Lugg, KitschZach Brown Band, “Chicken Fried”Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, Dogs Playing PokerSupport Overthink on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/overthinkpodcastWebsite | overthinkpodcast.comInstagram, Twitter, and TikTok | @overthink_podEmail |  Dearoverthink@gmail.comYouTube | Overthink podcastSupport the show

We recently sat down with Atlanta artist $lugg for an exclusive “Off The Porch” interview! During our conversation he discussed growing up in Riverdale, growing up with Waka Flocka & super producer Southside, his biggest life lessons, his start in pursuing his rap career, witnessing Waka Flocka blow up, working with Mike Will Made It, his relationship with Sony Digital, new EP “Sage in The Air”, his new music video “Mr. Maxwell“, his upcoming EP “Till My Fingers Burn”, and much more! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dirtyglovebastard/support

Mozart the Lugg is back but this time it's on his own turf!  This week we'll cover what to be weary of this summer when you're out with your pup, fruits that are safe for your dog to eat, and the usual shenanigans when getting dropped off at the Minj's.  Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/thezettyandindyshow

Camilla Lif: Rosa lugg och rakat. Per Naroskin: Moderna myter. Helena von Zweigbergk: Det nygamla normala. Lyssna på Spanarna i P1 med Ingvar Storm. I Spanarna hör du varje vecka tre skarpsynta personligheter som försöker avläsa trender i vår vardag och ge oss sina framtidsvisioner. Till sin hjälp har de programledaren Ingvar Storm.Veckans panel och spaningar i Spanarna i P1:Camilla Lif: Rosa lugg och rakat. Per Naroskin: Moderna myter. Helena von Zweigbergk: Det nygamla normalaspanarna@sverigesradio.se