We are together here and we are continuing in our course series,
and what a series has been. I've been grateful to the Lord
for the opportunity that I've had as I've studied His word
each week in terms of what God is speaking to us and teaching
to us. And before we get into this
week, I want to say that when we talk about the call, of course
it relates to us individually that we have a call that God has
placed on us individually to walk in the gifts that He's
poured upon us. Excuse me, but of course each
church has a call as well. Do you know that that as the
body corporately, we are called to extend His Kingdom, that the
church is the way in which God extends His Kingdom here on
earth? Excuse me.
And and you know, we have been on a journey this call for the
past 35 years. This church was founded 35 years
ago by founding passes Chris and Flis Lane in their lounge.
And here we are today, 35 years later meeting across three sites
here Hatfield and the Mounts and what a journey it's been, but
the best is yet to come. Ladies and gentlemen.
God has done a tremendous work this year.
It's been so exciting to see what the Lord's doing as we
launch reach 23 last year. And as we hold on what you're in
now reached 22 last year, is that correct?
Reached 23 this year and we've got some exciting developments
for Reach next year as well. But I want to invite you to
November the 5th. On Sunday.
We have a very special Sunday morning service, in fact, all of
our sites except for the Mount of course.
And if you're wondering why I said that, the Mount is our
prison site where we have almost 70 guys every Sunday.
They're meeting at the moment. Isn't that beautiful?
Worshipping. God.
I just feel like I want to pray for them.
And we're going to say thank, Thank you for our Mount site.
We thank you for those guys that are hungry for you, for the
worship team that's there of inmates, Lord, that are
passionate about you. We just pray your blessing upon
them as they meet, as we meet together, as one church across
multiple sites. Would you bless them and bless
Hatfield as well as they meet together this morning?
Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
And so on November the 5th, Hatfield and St.
Albans will be here. We have two very important
announcements as we continue on the call that the Lord has
placed on us as a church. You know I I said just before
COVID hit, I said I feel the Lord is saying that we're going
to look different, sound different, feel different and
smell different. Do you remember that?
And that has certainly been the, the process and the journey that
we've been on. And so I want you to be here on
November 5th to hear from me about some important
developments and announcements in the life of our church.
OK. So it's November 5th, You got
that? It's in your diary.
You're going to be here, right? Fantastic.
Good. Well, with that, guys, I'm just
going to pause and pray and we're going to get in the word
for this morning, Lord, we say we want to say thank you.
We want to say thank you for speaking to us so clearly these
past number of weeks and just challenging us, Lord, to move
from those shallow places into the deep with you that you are
calling us to move away from the metaphorical splash park into
the deep, deep ocean with you, Lord God.
Because there is a promise there of blessing.
There is a promise of newness of life in that place.
There was a promise of meeting you in a new way in that place.
So, Lord, I pray this morning that as I speak, you would just
help me. Lord God, give me the words that
I need. That which is not of you would
just fall away. And what I pray that each one of
us, as we hear these words, you would just prepare our hearts.
It would be fertile soil. And that these words would bear
fruit. Lord, I pray in your precious
name. Amen.
Well, there's a way of recap. We have been in the core series
and just in case you've missed any of those, you can catch up
on our YouTube channel. If you're watching right now,
hit the subscribe button and that Bell notification to get
important updates for all the new content that we'll be
releasing during the week. Got it done.
Hit that subscribe. But you can catch up there.
There's a lot of heckling going on by our worship pastor over
there. Thank you, brother.
I appreciate it. Thank you for the encouragement.
And we've been looking at the story when Jesus calls the first
disciples and when Jesus gets into the boat with Simon and he
says push away from from the shore, they go there, Jesus
speaks to the people. Then he says, right, let's go
into the deep and throw your Nets over, do you remember this?
And we've been looking at that call, the way it represents that
first before we do anything, we're called to be with Jesus.
That before we're called to do something, we're called to be
with someone. Because often time in our modern
lives we think when we hear the call that I'm called to do
something. But fundamentally the priority
with our walk with Jesus is the call to be with him.
And it is from that place of being that the doing comes.
It is a fruit. The doing is a fruit of
relationship with Christ. And then we looked at when they
moved away from the multitude, We looked at how that is a
picture of separation of a holiness, being separated from
the world and being consecrated to him.
We unpacked that and then we looked at the doing bit and
we're unpacking the 10 hallmarks. 10 hallmarks of the
call of God upon our lives. And we looked at God number one.
God calls us at the point where we feel weak and tired, #2 it
will require us to go deeper than we did before, and #3 it
doesn't always seem to make sense to us and we unpack those
together. And so that brings us to
Hallmark #4 and why don't we turn together to Luke chapter 5,
which we've been spending much time in and hopefully benefiting
from. Let's look at verses 1 to 11 and
what I want to do is zoom into verse 5 and it says this and
this is when Jesus says go into the deep and throw your Nets
over him and see what Simon Says.
This Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing and we
unpacked what that looked like a couple of weeks ago.
Nevertheless, that's an important word.
Nevertheless, at your word I will let down the net.
Now what happens when he lets down the net?
Does it come up empty or full? Does he have to get his friends
to help him? Yes.
Now this brings us to Hallmark #4 and it is this.
The call requires us to be obedient to His word.
The call requires obedience to His word.
Now what do you think when you hear the word obedient, what
does it conjure up for you? But think about it.
Obedience. Well, I think for many of us it
may be it triggers some negative feelings.
Got some nodding heads. I know.
For me, when I hear obedient, I have visions of my father
telling my brother and I off. To be fair, we needed to be told
off. We were rascals.
You need to be obedient, Mark. Anyone heard that?
Well, maybe for you it's Eat your greens, sit up straight,
brush your teeth. Be quiet.
You see, what happens is is that our notion of obedience in
adulthood is often formed by our childhood experiences, right?
I mean, who knows that we bring from our childhood baggage into
our adulthood? Do we know that for sure?
Yeah, But not only do we bring baggage, those issues that we
struggle with in our adulthood, these issues become lenses by
which we perceive truth. So when we hear obedience, the
lens by which we understand that word is baggage and negativity.
We think that obedience means some submission against our
will, and it's not very fun. Is that a fair sum up for most
of us when we hear obedience? But that's not the case
necessarily, and certainly within this context.
What if we have it wrong when it comes to obedience?
What if obedience was something positive rather than negative?
What if obedience was a doorway into blessing rather than a
place of feeling that you need to submit against your will and
that you'd rather not do it? What if blessings came from
obedience? Well, that's exactly what we're
going to see this morning. And for us, we need to look with
a different lens. When we hear about obedience, we
need to look at it at a lens through which God looks at it.
And that's what I want us to do this morning.
You see, what does it mean to be obedient?
Well, in simple terms and in in a general sense, and within this
context, it means hearing the word of God and acting on it.
That is simply what it means to to be obedient to God, hearing
His word and acting upon it. Another way you could look at
the word obedience is that it is an action word.
Obedience needs to result in an action, right?
Is that fair? You can feel free to respond if
you wish, Don't need to be obedient to that, by the way,
you know. It's just a suggestion.
You know, so far in these three hallmarks, we've seen how God
works towards us, right? Listen, He calls us to the point
where we feel weak and tired. He calls us to go deeper than
we've been before. He his call doesn't seem to make
sense to us. And then we come to this
hallmark and it's now all about how we respond.
It's about us and the choice we make.
Now when you think about the call of God upon your lives,
this is a pivotal point because at this point you can either
say, I'm not going to put those Nets in, I am tired, It doesn't
make sense. I am feeling weak, therefore no.
And then there's no point in listening to the rest of the
hallmarks. You see, Hallmark #4 represents
a decision marker in the call with God.
It represents a decision that we need to take whether or not
we're going to move in what God has for us or stay in that boat
and decide to go back to the shore.
And what happens when you do that?
You miss out on the fish. You miss out on the fish.
And I believe that some of you here this morning, you're almost
up to Hallmark, You are up to Hallmark #4.
You've yet to be obedient. You've yet to say yes.
You've heard God clearly. You're in the boat with Him.
You've seen him move. You feel weak and tired.
You hear the call to go deeper. It doesn't seem to make sense to
you, and therefore you say no. But you see, Hallmark #4 is not
about saying no. It's about obedience to His
word. And I want to look at, well,
let's look at this. What?
What is obedience? And what is the blessing of
obedience? Let's look at this first one.
Obedience is an act of surrender.
It is an act of surrender. And there's a keyword in this
verse. Maybe we'll get it back up.
There you go. Let's have it up.
The previous verse actually, that we looked at, There's a
keyword in this verse and it is this word.
Nevertheless, this is an extremely important word.
This is the pivot word. This is the word.
Nevertheless, it means in spite of what I think, in spite of
what I know, in spite of what I feel.
Never the less, this is the moment of decision.
Nevertheless is the moment where obedience becomes action.
And you see, obedience requires us to say nevertheless.
Why? Because nevertheless is an act
of surrender. Who to?
What did Simon say? Master, we have toyed all night.
We surrender to our Master. We surrender to our overseer.
We surrender to our Lord and Saviour who is enthroned on
high. And here's the thing you see.
Why is it important that we are with Him before we do it?
Because we need to. We need to know the Master
before we can surrender fully. I said that doing came out of
relationship. It comes out of a relationship
and an understanding that he is our master and we are his.
The biggest thing that will stop you from saying nevertheless is
I am the master. You're not the master.
I'm the master. I mean, that's just a definition
of pride, isn't it? And a definition of humility is
an understanding that he is the Master and we are his.
That is what it means to be humble.
And as at the start of this series I quoted Timothy Keller
who, a great theologian and pastor, he passed away last
year, I believe. He says the heart of the call of
God is the surrender of the will.
It is the place. And and I, I, I, I see what
Timothy Keller is saying here. You see, nevertheless, it is a
word of surrender. It is a place where you let go
of something you've you've held and embraced on, and then go and
embrace the word of God that he has spoken because you're
embracing him. You see that?
Surrender of our will, surrender of our desires, surrender of our
experiences, surrender of our expectations, surrender of our
own views, surrender of our fear of what others may think about
us, and surrender to the one who loves us to our master.
That is what nevertheless means, because Simon in this story knew
how to fish. And we looked at this a couple
of weeks ago. He knew that you needed to fish
at night because their Nets were made out of linen, and so the
fish would see during the day. And he thought he knew it.
He was a professional after all, and Jesus wasn't.
How many times have we said this?
Well, Jesus, I'm the professional here.
You don't know my job. We don't use those words, but we
imply it. I'm like I'm the God of the
universe. But you see what happens here is
that Simon surrenders his experience and his
professionalism and his view of doing things and says
nevertheless, nevertheless, I would choose to surrender to
you. And so maybe this morning you
need to proclaim to God nevertheless.
Maybe that word nevertheless is the word of the season for you,
because nevertheless is a doorway into walking into the
call that God has for you #2. Obedience, while it is also
surrender, is an outworking of our love.
You see, our obedience to Him should be motivated by our love
for the Master. And we see this throughout the
scriptures. John 1415 is a very, very famous
verse. If you love me, Jesus says you
will what? Obey my commands.
You see, love is another doing word, isn't it?
We often think that love is a feeling.
And of course there is an emotional element to how we
experience love. But love has an outworking love
is a doing word. And you see, the connection
between love for Christ and obedience to him is a theme that
we see throughout the New Testament and specifically with
John's writings. Let's look at one John 5.
Two to three says this. This is how we know that we love
the children of God by loving God and what carrying out his
commandments. In fact, he says this is love
for God to keep his commandments.
I meet so many Christians who say I love Jesus and in the next
moment say but I'm going to carry on doing what I know God
doesn't approve of. I respectively say you might
feel an emotion of love towards God and I don't want to minimize
that. But the type of love that the
Bible talks about, a love where we give him our all, that we
surrender to him, that we recognize the work that he's
done on the cross, that love has a response, That love is that we
follow his commands and his word.
Feel like I want to go a bit deeper in that I don't want to
offend you guys. But like we got to take sin
seriously here because if Jesus so loved, if the if God the
Father so loved the world that he what gave.
In other words, his love had an action, right?
But God so loved the word that he sent his only begotten Son
that whoever should believeth in him will not perish but have
eternal life. And So what did Jesus do?
Because of his great love? He died on the cross for our
sin, right? So what is that like when then
we turn around, say, Jesus, I love you, but I'm going to put
you back on the cross again by sinning all the time, because
that's what we're doing. You hear me?
If he so loved us that he died on the cross for that sin and
that stuff, is not our response. That we should offer ourselves
as a living sacrifice to him? That if we want to take
seriously the work of the cross and worship him for that and
thank him for that and love him for that, that we should walk in
the freedom that Jesus purchased on the cross for us.
Now, I'm not suggesting that it's easy to die to self and to
walk away from sin. I know it's not.
We have the world, the enemy, and our flesh.
But what I'm talking about is not not not moving in and out of
sin. What I'm talking about is making
a decision not to move out of that sin.
That's what I'm focusing on here.
But it's in that place we say, Lord Jesus, I love you.
And so I'm going to say even though I love this sin, even
though it makes me feel good, even though I don't know a way
out, even though my friends will think I'm crazy, even though
it's going to cause issues. Nevertheless.
Why? Because I love you, and I want
to demonstrate that love to you. Just how you demonstrated that
love to me. And that's the heart of it, you
know, as we walk with the Lord, as we become mature in Him, as
we spend time in the boat with the Master, His love changes us
from the inside out. And guess what?
We want to obey Him. We want to.
And as we grow in our love for him, we see that it becomes
easier and easier to say. Nevertheless, seemingly he gives
us bigger things to say nevertheless about.
And so I want to encourage us all to say, listen, let's not
just use that word. Love glibly like the world does.
Love island flock. Do not watch it.
Protect your eyes, people. Don't let the enemy twist love.
Anyway, I'm not going to go there.
Haven't got the time or the energy.
Let's not use love glibly. Let's think about what we're
saying when we say we love you, Jesus.
Let's have a life that reflects that love, a life that is one
that says I want to obey you. Why?
And I'll give you a a little peek into next week's hallmark
because there's blessing and obedience.
He's He is so wanting to give you all those fish saying
listen, being obedient is really good for you.
My commands to you. This is another thing.
You see, we have a negative connotation of command.
We think it's a negative thing, don't we?
Most of the time, a command is a direction that we have to
follow. What if that is not so?
What if God commands a life giving words of truth that he
wants us to walk in? Would you not listen to it
differently? Would you not want to say I want
to obey you, Lord be God? Because, quite frankly, that's
the place of freedom. That's the place of blessing.
That's the place of truth. That's the place of healing.
That's the place where I meet with you.
That's the place that I honour you.
That's the place that I worship you.
That's the place that I experienced you.
That's the place that brings you glory.
And that brings me to point #3. Obedience is a result of faith.
It's a it's a place of surrender.
It's an outworking of love. And it is also a result of
faith. You see, obedience is a
demonstration of our faith in the one who spoke Hebrews 11/6.
This with Hebrews 11/6 says this thank you and without faith it
is what to what please him? What really.
Wow. You mean God can be pleased or
not pleased with us. But I thought he loved us no
matter what. Of course he loves you no matter
what, but he doesn't always have to be pleased with you.
I mean, I love my children no matter what.
But I'll tell you, there's some moments when I'm not very
pleased with their behavior. And I know you are the parents
out there who can heal. Feel me right.
God says listen, I love you so much.
I just you are the best thing since sliced bread.
In fact, I knitted you together in your mother's womb.
In fact, you're fearfully and wonderfully made.
In fact, I dance over you and sing over you.
And I'm not very pleased with you right now, because you're
not walking in the faith, the gift that I've given you.
I want to please God. I want to please Him.
Without faith, it's impossible to please him.
For whoever would draw near to God, listen, must believe that
he exists and listen to this, that he rewards those who seek
him. Ah, the blessing is there in
that place Absolutely. And you see, nevertheless is a
doorway into pleasing our Father.
Nevertheless is a doorway into the rewards that he's waiting
for us. I want to say, Nevertheless,
many times today I feel, I feel like I want to say nevertheless.
Give me an opportunity, Lord, to say, actually, you've got to be
careful with that prayer. Be careful what you pray for.
So obedience, the outworking of obedience, is a demonstration of
our faith in the one who spoke the Word.
Yeah, but obedience is also a demonstration of our faith in
his ability to be true to His word, right?
Why? Because when we say
nevertheless, we are choosing to trust God in the call, even if
it looks impossible in the Nevertheless, we're making a
choice to say your word above my word.
It says in Two Corinthians 574, we walk by, Not by rights.
They've ever tried doing that. Everyone's going to go home and
turn the lights off and put a thing on the sidewalk.
This is really difficult. We want to have sight.
We want to know what happens. We want to have a certainty that
we have figured it out and then we'll do it.
But what? But what God is calling us is to
live a life where our sight is in His word and His Word alone.
Proverbs 3/5 and six. You've heard this from this
pulpit many a time. Trust in the Lord with all your
and do not lean on your own. Well done, All in all your ways.
Acknowledge Him, and He will do what exactly?
Make your path straight. You see that is a nevertheless
first right? Right.
There's a nevertheless 1 Nevertheless.
Nevertheless you know. It says in James 226 that
without that, faith, without works is dead.
Now we have to be very careful when we quote this scripture,
because some have turned this to say that your faith comes by
works. It's not what it's saying.
Our salvation is a gift of God. It's by grace, not by works.
Lest any man should boast right. You can't earn your salvation.
You come as you are and you just say yes to Jesus and he does it
for you by the power of His spirit.
Yes, we then once we justify just if I'd have been on that
cross, we then need to walk in what's called sanctification,
which is a partnership between US and God to say change me and
conform me to the likeness of His sun.
That's sanctification. And then the good news is
there'll come the glorification where we're raised again with
Christ. Amen.
But what it's saying here is that process of sanctification
and we're in that journey. This is the Corbet is to say,
listen, there is no faith in Jesus, no saving faith if there
is no words. In other words, a saving faith
in Christ will demonstrate itself in godly works, right?
Because this is what it means. If you believe, IE, that he died
on the cross, that he saved you, that he is eternal, that he is
God, then surely that therefore means that we will put our trust
in Him. I mean, it sounds so simple when
I say it like that, but who knows?
It's not easy to walk like that, right?
But you see, what it should, what it should be is that our
saving faith enables us to trust in Him and His Word and say
nevertheless, nevertheless, and in a moment we're going to pray.
And I want to pray in this House for a gift of faith.
I want us to be a people of faith, a people that can say
boldly nevertheless, that doesn't even think twice.
That says nevertheless, if you have called me, if, even though
I feel weak and tired, even though Lord, it doesn't make
sense to me nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless,
because that is a doorway into the blessings that God has for
us. So that's obedience.
Just there are only three points.
There are many more. With the time that's given to me
and the focus that I felt the Lord wanted to give.
Obedience is an act of surrender.
Obedience is an outworking of our love and obedience as a
result of faith and what I want to find, finish on and I've been
implicit in this throughout the talk.
But let me be more specific. Obedience to what?
And more specifically, to whom? Obedience to His Word and
therefore to God Himself. The Greek word used in this
story is the word Rhema Word that is the spoken word of God.
And what that means is His word is living and His Word is alive,
that His word is life. His word brings correction.
His word brings blessing. We can trust His word because we
can trust God says in Numbers 2319, God is not man, that he
should lie. Maybe for some of us, our
heavenly Father, our earthly fathers, you know, we have an
issue with trusting because of our earthly fathers.
And no father is perfect. I'm certainly not perfect.
And there are times where I've let my kids down.
And I say to them, listen. I want to say to them, listen,
Your heavenly Father will never let you down.
When your Heavenly Father says something unlike your earthly
father, he'll keep his word because God is not a man that he
should lie, nor the Son of Man that he should change his mind.
We're not saying nevertheless to a God that will be really
focused on one thing and then next week say, sorry, what was
that? I know you said nevertheless,
but I've. I've changed my mind about that.
I think it was a mistake on hindsight, you know, God doesn't
turn around and say, yeah, I actually, upon reflection, you
really shouldn't have said, nevertheless, I'm really sorry
about that. Would you forgive me?
God doesn't do that. He doesn't change his mind and
he doesn't lie. Or has he not spoken?
Will he not fulfill it? We can trust him because he
doesn't lie. He doesn't change his mind and
he will fulfill his word. When God says go, you say yes.
When God says I will do it, you say Amen.
When God says this is what I'm saying now, you can be confident
that he won't change his mind tomorrow.
That is the God who we trust. We trust the God that never
changes. But I want to say there's
another dynamic to this. It is this.
The word of God is Jesus. John Chapter one in the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.
The Word was God and the Word became flesh.
Jesus, And you know what happened says in Revelation
12/13 about Jesus at the second coming.
His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many
Diademes, and he has a name written that no one knows but
himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped
in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God.
Why can we trust his word? Because we can trust our master
in the boat with us. I want to end by asking a
question that maybe you're asking yourself, but I certainly
ask myself when it comes to the nevertheless, nevertheless,
moment. God, this is really hard.
I'm not wanting to suggest to you that this is really easy.
I want to suggest to you that actually it's not that the enemy
would tempt you to question his call.
The enemy would tempt you to question the character of God.
The enemy would come to tempt you, to question your ability
even to say yes. But we have good news because
when Jesus went to be glorified with the Father, what did he
say? I'm going to leave you.
And you can imagine the disciples like that is bad news.
Please stay. So no, it's good news because
I'm going to be the Father and he is going to send the Holy
Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is going to guide you and comfort
you and strengthen you, and he's going to walk with you and equip
you and give everything you need.
You see, we don't need to be obedient on our own.
The Holy Spirit is here to help us, to say.
Nevertheless, I'd like us all to stand now.