Wow. Well, here we are on another
Sunday. I said this morning.
Sunday's come round really quick.
I don't know what about you, but I feel like the weeks just seem
to be getting faster. And this morning I'm going to
actually start by giving you a little update.
So as you will be aware if you were here last year, we started
a mission series last year where we kind of relaunched our
posture towards missions and we kind of unpacked what that meant
for us as a church going after the Great Commission, stepping
in as Acts 18. And Freya already mentioned this
morning about being witnesses in the local, the near and the far.
And we're actually a whole year on, I can't believe it from that
series. And as a church, we've done a
lot this year already around mission globally and locally.
And so this morning, I just want to give you a quick update
before I get into the talk on a couple of things.
And the first is this, that right now our mission team is on
a plane about to land in the Himalayas.
They're up in the air. They should be up here.
This lovely team last night set off from Heathrow, so church do
be praying for them. They have gone out to our
partnership in the Himalayas where we are as a church
empowering the Bible to be made a reality into the oral language
of an unreached people group who are yet to hear the name of
Jesus. But because of what you're doing
in this place, what the translators are doing in the
Himalayas, and because of our encouragement and support, we
are making the truth of God's Word a reality in a group of
people's lives that are going to experience His goodness for the
first time. And that is super exciting.
And these guys are going out to encourage our translators and
understand the process better. So please do keep them in your
prayers in the next 10 days as they go on.
Quite the adventure. And so we continue in that
partnership and it's super exciting.
We know as I updated a while ago, the whole New Testament is
done and they're now diligently working through the Old
Testament. Bless them.
We also had a team in the summer that went out to Sri Lanka to
visit our vineyard partnership in Sri Lanka.
We've got vineyard leaders who were planting churches.
People were coming to Jesus, and the team had an incredible time
in Sri Lanka. And again, all because of
everybody in this room rallying around that team to make that a
reality. We had an amazing Love your
Street back in June where we all got off the seats in this
building and we got out on the streets and we loved our
neighbors well. And we celebrated well because
God is moving. And I've loved that since Love
your street. I've had so many people who come
and say, oh, guess what, Claire, this week I did this, I, I've
kept doing love your street. And that was what love Your
Street was all about. It was about igniting something
in us to realise it's really quite simple to love the people
that live next door to you. And as we go into 2026, I want
to give you a little update. We are expanding our reach.
We are pushing out our partnerships.
And you will remember last year we heard from Sam Miller at Open
Doors. It was a powerful Sunday in this
place that I don't think there was a heart that was not moved
listening to the stories of the persecuted church around the
world. And so I'm delighted to tell you
this morning that as a Versa church family, we are stepping
into a partnership with Open Doors.
We are giving to them every month to stand with them as they
church, which is super exciting. So you will get to hear more
stories and ways to pray with them.
And you can sign up. Just so you know, you can go to
Open Doors yourself and sign up. And honestly, the newsletters
and the powerful prayer points, they, they flaw me every time I
read them and they humble me about the reality that we get to
walk in here on a Sunday and not take this for granted.
We get to love Jesus openly and courageously out loud without
fear of our lives. And there are of Christians
around the world for whom that is not a reality.
So we're focusing that on West Africa.
That will be the area of the world that we will partner with.
And finally, you know, we felt the Lord stirring in us around
justice and compassion. What, what does that look like
Lord to extend our reach into those areas?
And I heard the Lord say it's local and global.
And, and so I'm excited to also share this morning that we are
officially partnering with Azalea in Luton.
I love it. For those of you who don't know,
many in many in this room will know Azalea because we've got
many people in this room that serve with Azalea who work with
them, but they empower and facilitate sustainable
transformation in the lives of those impacted by sex
trafficking on our streets in the city of Luton, also in High
Wycombe and have a global influence.
But we really believe in what they're doing and the
transformation that they're seeing.
And we're also on a global perspective, stepping in to see
things change on the global level.
And so we're also going to be partnering with International
Justice Mission, who work in a similar area to Azalea, but they
look at the root causes of that in governments, in systems, and
they are seeing radical transformation in nations that
look like it would be impossible to see a change.
They're seeing it made possible. And I'm not going to go into
that today because next week we have the wonderful Cath Johnson,
who leads the new wine movement, and she works for IGN.
She's going to come and share about IGN and unpack that for
us. So that is a little update.
We are expanding our reach and we're going after Jesus in all
of these places. And that is because you guys
give generously. It's because we listen to the
Word and we follow his lead. And yeah, I just want to say
thank you for the ways that you give faithfully so that we can
do that. Amen.
Thank you, Jesus.
Wonderful. Well, we're going to dig into a
new series, which you can see on the back is called Missions
Shocker, as I started with that. But I want to, you know, many of
you will know if you've been around here for very long, that
I love gardening. And, and there's something it's
done even just yesterday as I sat in our lounge looking out at
flowers that are still blooming, shockingly, dahlias that are
still in full bloom here at almost the end of November.
And I was thinking back to the day that I held a seed in my
hand, just a tiny, tiny seed. And it looks so small and
ordinary. But inside of that seed is the
DNA of something absolutely extraordinarily beautiful.
It can be a plan, a seed or a flower, and everything that's
needed for that seed is already inside of it.
It's DNA. But what do we do?
We place seeds into soil. We push them down into the soil.
And for the potential that's inside of that seed to come
alive, it needs the right environment.
It needs the right soil with the right nutrients and ingredients
around it for it to to come to life.
And I want to put that image in your mind as we start this
morning because what we're going to unpack here this morning is
compassion, a vision of transformation.
And I want us to explore God's vision of transformation and the
posture as a church that we hold to be the soil that wraps around
people's lives to bring life as God intended it, their purpose,
their dignity, their value to life.
Particularly in our posture as we think about how we love those
who are experiencing poverty and injustice and going through
difficulty and hard times as we believe record to be a Church of
compassion. So let's pray.
Father, I thank you for this new day.
And Lord, we want to catch your vision this morning, what you
see when you look upon our world and our city and the people that
you have created in your image. Lord, will we have open hearts
this morning? Hear your voice as you speak to
each one of us about our part to play in the outworking of your
transformation in our world in Jesus name, Amen.
Well, we're going to be turning to Isaiah 40 this morning.
If you want to pull that up, you can.
Let's have a quick dive in. I want to give a little bit of
context before we read it. You know, Isaiah is a prophet
and he opens chapter 40 of Isaiah.
It's the second-half of Isaiah, and it is a really key turning
point from a a place essentially of judgement to a place of hope.
The Israelites have been exiled as the Babylonians besieged
their city. And honestly, they're despairing
because what they are experiencing seems to counter
what they've been promised by God to be a great nation whom
God would establish the Kingdom through.
And in the midst of looking at their reality, they're
ultimately falling for the lie that God has forgotten them.
He's abandoned them. And you can imagine, right?
We've all been in those spots where we start to wrestle with
those questions that we thought we knew what we answers to.
But here, because of the reality we find ourselves in, we're
like, does God want to help us? Can he really help us?
Will he help us? I mean, maybe that's just me.
The into that despair that the Israelites had, Isaiah comes and
he speaks God's comfort and he gives them a vision of hope and
assurance that this is not the end of their story, even though
what they're experiencing doesn't make sense or what they
had imagined or hoped or thought it would be.
He paints this incredible picture, a prophetic voice that
calls into the midst of a circumstance and calls forth a
fresh vision of a new reality of transformation.
So let's read from verse 340, verse 3.
In the wilderness, a voice of 1 cause the way of the Lord makes
straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made
low. The rough ground shall become
level, the rugged places a plain, and the glory of the Lord
will be revealed, and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
And man, I love worship, and I love how God weaves I.
We were sat there at the end saying, and the glory of the
Lord will be seen on all of the earth.
And here we are in this scripture this morning.
The glory of the Lord will be seen on all the earth by all
people. Amen.
And these words weren't just a powerful image for the
Israelites in front of them. They were a prophetic voice
giving hope and vision to a future generation.
And we see that in Matthew 3/3 when John the Baptist walks out
this prophecy where he is the voice crying, and he walks in to
preach in the wilderness as he prepares the way for Jesus.
And the depth and the beauty of these hope filled words in
Isaiah then ultimately unfold through Jesus who came as the
way God's Son, making this incredible declaration that what
seems impossible can be made possible only through Jesus.
And that now, in this moment in 2025, there is nothing beyond
redemption through the cross and the resurrection, which declared
that no person, no situation, you know, no financial crisis
this morning, no relationship, no medical diagnosis, no
circumstance is beyond the power of God's love and transformation
this morning. Amen.
And I think some of us out of the gates here need to hear that
reality and that truth this morning, that nothing is beyond
the power of God's love and redemption and transformation in
your life. Nothing.
Jesus, life made a way, and his declaration is always one of
hope. But these words in Isaiah are
also a posture of hope and a vision of transformation, and a
posture and vision that we as a church, you and me, are called
to hold for each other and for ourselves, but also for every
person in this world. Which is particularly poignant
when we consider missions globally or specifically today
as we consider what it means to be compassionate and how we
express that here as a church in this building.
Tomorrow morning, on Monday, on Tuesday and Wednesday and
Thursday and Friday, we're called church to have this
vision of transformation for every person experiencing
poverty and injustice and difficulty in our neighborhoods
and on our streets and in our city.
And the reason I say this is that about a year ago I was
praying over Versa Care. One of my remits and joys is to
oversee Versa Care, which is a compassion ministry of ours as a
church here. And it happens over there on
that side of the building. If you don't know what Versa
care is, you need to go and ask and come and see and and we'll
give you a tour. But I was asking the Lord like,
OK, God, what is it that you want to sharpen us in and Versa
care? What is the posture that we are
to hold as we serve those who find themselves in these places?
And the Lord said this to me. I want you to call the bride at
the church to be like Isaiah, to be a voice calling in the
wilderness of people's lives, proclaiming that this is not the
end of your story. This is not the end of anyone's
story. Jesus is your story.
And Desmond Tutu has a quote that I love and it says the hope
is being able to see that there is light despite all the
darkness. And NT Wright builds on that.
When he talks about how the how the resurrection is essentially
about us implementing hope, he says that hope isn't a theory,
it's a movement. It rolls up its sleeves and it
put it, it is, as he puts it, implementing the resurrection in
the power of the spirit. And that's why hope matters.
Church hope doesn't sit on the sidelines.
It doesn't sit back and be passive.
It acts. It prepares the way it steps
into the wilderness because the resurrection is already at work
in US. And the church is the only
people on the earth that can truly say this, that hope is
alive, not because we can fix it, but because we can lead
people to the only one who can, the only true hope.
And so my prayer is that God would awaken us honestly to be a
people that can stand and say transformation is possible
because Jesus is here. And that we would be postured
with a vision of transformation even in a world that keeps
repeating a narrative that this is too dark, that this is the
end. This is everything is hopeless.
Nothing's going to change. No, no one's going to bring the
the solutions. It's doom and gloom and church,
it's our hour to rise and be the light of hope and transformation
and be a voice that proclaims who Jesus is.
Amen. Amen.
It's our hour to be postured with vision and to be a voice
that calls out. And so from Isaiah 40, I just
sat in this scripture for us today, and the Lord highlighted
three ways that we're to walk as a church in this day.
And particularly, as I said, looking through the lens of what
our compassion ministry looks like.
And the first is this. We are to be a people of
comfort, you know, before the vision of transformation that
comes in verses 3 to 5. I want to still look at verses
1:00 to 2:00 because what does God say?
Comfort, comfort. My people speak tenderly to
them. And then he goes on to remind
them that their sin is pardoned. Ultimately what their true
identity is. Now, it's interesting when you
look at this word comfort, because the Hebrew word for
comfort is a word that I'm terribly not going to pronounce,
but hopefully it will come up on the screen.
Naturmu, maybe we'll go for that.
I'll go for Hebrew lessons soon, I promise.
But this word is not the modern sense of what comes to our mind
when we think about comfort. You know, comfort in our modern
age is ultimately about making everything feel good.
You know, the comfy blanket on your sofa at night.
It's the the clothes that feel comfortable.
It's whatever it looks like. It's the food that's your
comfort food when you're feeling a bit down and gloomy, you know,
come on, Bit of Cadbury's chocolate.
Can't beat it. It goes.
I should, I should be like Mark and start suggesting my favorite
things up here. Because if you're watching Mark,
you'd be proud. But comfort, it goes much deeper
in the Hebrew. In the original, the root of the
world is related to a physical sighing or a breathing hard, a
physical sense of being relieved after walking through something
immensely stressful and hard. It's an active, strengthening
comfort that gives courage and resilience.
And God here as he's talking to the Israelites, he's talking
about the comfort that's promised that can only come from
him, the relief and deliverance that God will bring as they face
a seriously long period of captivity and despair.
And notice it says it twice. Comfort, comfort.
The repetition of words in the Scripture need to catch our
attention because it highlights the people's deep need for this
kind of powerful consolation from God because of their
suffering. And so when you dig into this,
you realise that comfort is not about making it feel good.
It's this active, not passive life giving reassurance that
impacts the physical meeting people in their physical need,
bringing a relief as a demonstration of the truest form
of comfort, Jesus relationship with him that brings strength to
the whole world emotionally, physically, spiritually.
But I love that God pairs this, this like essentially a posture
of of truth, right? That that's what really brings
strength is truth, but God pairs it with tenderness, because
tenderness is how we speak truth.
And as we bring a demonstration both in the physical and in the
what comes out of our mouths, God's reminding us to do it
tenderly. And Jesus models this right when
we think about his life when people were broken, when people
were lost or rejected, He never started with condemnation.
In fact, he never condemned. He always begins with dignity,
hope, and a reminder of their truest identity.
The woman at the well, Zacchaeus, the woman caught in
adultery. The leper.
It was never get your life together.
This is how you got here. What stupid choices did you
make? He began with what they needed
most, physical demonstrations of dignity and hope and truth,
touching the leper that no one would touch, turning and looking
at the woman in the eye that nobody wanted to acknowledge
they knew. He meets people where they're
at. He offers dignity before
direction. He spoke identity before
correction. And as God's church, we are
called to do the same. Comfort with strength, speak
with tenderness and remind people of their truest identity,
not what the world has told them, not what their own
narrative has told them because of their life circumstances.
The narrative that Jesus speaks over them, that you and my
child, that you've been made in my image and inside of you is
purpose and hope and dignity. And you are made with my
intention inside of you. And that is true for each one of
us in here. And that is true for every
person on this planet. The ones that know Jesus, these
are the ones that don't. They are made in the image of
God. And they need us as a church to
call out that image, to call out their identity and say you are
loved and we're going to show you why.
And honestly, church, we have a beautiful expression of this
that happens every week in this building in Verso care.
We are creating intentional spaces and places for people to
walk in our doors as they are because if I'm really honest
with you, they won't walk in here on a Sunday because their
reality feels so far away from our reality that this feels like
too big of a gap. And so we have Versa care and we
open our doors and we say, come as you are.
We say you're hungry, let's come get some food from our food
bank. You've got you're a single mum
and you've got kids and you've been rallying all week in a flat
on your own. Then coming into our stay and
play, let your kids play with our toys.
You know what they need some clothes.
We've got some clothes, we've got some equipment.
We also want to have a conversation with you as the mum
because we know that life is really hard as a single mum.
We have a cafe where people get to come into a cafe that looks a
lot like a cafe in the middle of town, and they don't have to pay
for the beautiful cake and have someone serve them a coffee
because they're worth the dignity that each one of us gets
to experience when we walk in and tap our card and buy that
latte. But we meet people in those
spaces that are often in crisis, people on the edge of tears.
They feel like their world is falling apart.
They don't know if life is worth the living.
We have refugees that have found themselves on new shores and
unable to speak a language, lost everything that they've ever
known because their family has been torn away from them in a
war zone. And they come in our door and we
say we love you. How can we help you today?
You know what so many of them say?
So peaceful in this building. What is it that's going on here?
Here's the reality Church. Every meal served, every coffee
poured, every peaceful environment created through the
Spirit of God is a prophetic act, a posture that declares,
like Isaiah, that there is hope, there is comfort, there is
strength and assurance that this is not the end of your story.
And there is a God who cares so much that we show up to serve
you a coffee, We show up to give you a bag of food.
We show up to have the conversation with a police
officer that's brought someone who's in such crisis that they
need an emergency bag any hour of the day through the week.
And we will give it to them because we love them, because
they are made in the image of God and they deserve dignity and
value and worth. And we get to make that
declaration as a church. Amen.
Secondly, we are a people who prepare verses 3 and 4.
It says this in the wilderness. Prepare the way for the Lord.
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made
low. The rough ground shall become
level, the rugged places plain. Isaiah gives a picture
essentially of a barren landscape, which here in the
Scripture is God's people. They had become barren and into
which God shows up. And if I had time to share lots
of stories this morning from Versa Care, you would not be
shocked. I'm sure to know that many of
their realities are heartbreaking and complex.
And often the horizon looks pretty brief and barren if
you're looking from a human perspective.
But God is reminding us in this room this morning.
And this is something I remind our team at Versa Care of all of
the time. We aren't called to see that.
We're called to see God's what God sees.
We're called to see what he, his vision is for their life.
And I love it. He says that every valley will
be raised up. We know those valleys in our own
lives, right? The situations that feel too
much unbearable, or the shame of our sin that so easily entangles
us. But we see the valleys in our
world through injustice and poverty and the forgotten and
the poor and the desolate. And God is reminding us here
that through Jesus every value can be lifted.
And that Jesus through Jesus will be lifted one day.
Every mountain and hill will be made low.
Those mountains of indifference that exist in us in action, our
pride, but in our world, the powerful, unjust structures that
will be humbled, that will be brought down because of Jesus.
And next week you're going to get to hear some of those
stories. And honestly, they are going to
blow your mind at the work of the God through bringing down
unbelievable systems of injustice that have caused much
pain. But the ground will also become
level, a rugged place, a plane, the barriers that divide, the
tensions, the questions, the unknown, they will be made
smooth. And as we stand here in the
between of the here and not yet, we are called as the bride of
Christ to keep believing for what's in heaven, to come to
earth, where we would see the markers of this transformation
happening in the here and the now.
But notice those few words that come before this picture.
Prepare the way the Lord will do the impossible, but he
commissions us to be a people who prepare.
You know, I was thinking about my dad was a a Co Co vocational
pastor Slash. He had his own construction
company and we grew up in Devon and he would do a lot of work on
farms. And I can remember as a little
girl I realised now we'd never be allowed to go because of
health and safety. But I used to go to work with my
dad sometimes on the weekends. And I can remember him being in
situations where farmers were like, can we please make a lane
across this field? And he'd be like, well, it's
very, that's going to be a little tricky given the state of
the land. But he had a remarkable ability
to say, I see it, I see the vision of it, and we can make it
happen. We can make it happen.
And then he was set to diligently preparing the ground.
And my word, to lay a road or a farm lane out of concrete.
The diligence required to prepare the ground is
phenomenal, but he would see it, and then he would get stuck into
doing the work required to ensure it was prepared.
And then the concrete lorry would come and it would pour.
And I'd watch him as he diligently laid out this road so
that the life of that farm in the form of animals would be
able to travel in the direction that they were destined to
travel. And Jesus did the same.
He didn't shout hope from afar. He got close.
He didn't just see the vision of someone's life.
He sat with the lonely. He walked with the poor.
He touched the untouchable. Because compassion was never
pity. It was always proximity.
He built a road into people's lives so that they could walk
towards God's love that would transform them.
But I think proximity, if I'm honest, is the part we often
avoid. We love the idea of compassion
as a church, often churches across the world, but we
struggle with the proximity and the cost.
We think, you know what? I'm, I'm not really core to
that. That's for that person over
there. They've got a deeply
compassionate heart. Can I be really honest?
Compassion is not a personality type.
It's discipleship. Compassion is not a personality
type. It's discipleship as we model
our lives on Jesus as we are his apprentice.
Transformation happens in us when we remember the radical
transformation that Jesus brought to our lives as we came
to the cross and realised what he'd done for us.
We were all desperate, in despair and desolate.
And he walked into our lives and he gave us the gift of life
through his death and resurrection.
And when we sit in the cross and the awe and the wonder like
Eduardo unpacked last week, from that place we are empowered to
become the soil that wraps around the seed of other
people's lives to remind them of what is possible, what is God
has placed inside of them. We're people that are called to
build, to prepare the road, to take up the stones that get in
people's way, to wrap an arm around somebody and say, you've
got this, you can do it. Because we're not called, as
one, John 318 says, to just love with words or speech.
We are called to love with actions.
And in truth, you know, and sometimes that looks like
investor care, recognising that we, we respond in the crisis,
we, we wrap our, our arms wide open and say, come as you are.
But as we love people in those spaces, you know, even as we
invite families into refill in the summer holidays and we say,
there's a table, we want you to gather as a table and eat as a
family because you don't get to eat as a family any other day of
the week because you don't even have a dining table in your
house. As we wrap our arms around
people in those spaces to say, come as you are, what we're also
saying is don't stay as you are. We see something in you that can
change for the good. And we it's like when a seed
grows out of the seed in the ground and that tender seedling
rises up, you know, at home, sometimes I put a stick in to
the ground, it goes into the soil and then I wrap some string
around it and I give IT support. And that's what we do in Versa
Care through our bridge programme.
It's our gold thread programme where we say to people, you are
so worth it that we want to wrap ourselves next to you for the
long haul. We believe in you and we believe
in what God is doing in your life that we will walk with you,
with mentor you. We will be here week in and week
out to kind of process what you're going through.
We will empower you with courses.
You need some help in getting out of debt?
Let's do it together. You need some help in
understanding boundaries and relationships?
Let's do it together. And so we have an incredible
number of mentors who are in this room who sit with people in
Versa care and say we believe in you and we believe in what God
can do in your life. And we want to walk it for the
long haul, right? Just as Isaiah spoke into that
group that were in a long journey of desperation and
exile, God shows up in people's lives.
And we do that together as we have mentors who walk this
journey because we believe that every person is capable of
thriving. Every person is capable of
living in the reality of hope. And we will do what it takes to
roll up our sleeves and walk with them all of the way to find
Jesus, the true transformer of hearts.
And so my question for us this morning church is the verse of
care is 1 expression. Many of you are involved in many
expressions of compassion, but what is your place?
What is the nutrient, essentially, that you carry,
that you bring to the soil of our church that wraps itself
around people who are experiencing poverty and
injustice? Because the question is not if
we should engage, it's how we're going to engage.
Because compassion is not a special ministry.
It is a core piece of who Jesus is.
And we all are disciples of Jesus.
And if we are disciples of Jesus, we are asking him how we
become more like him. Which means the question is, how
are we becoming more compassionate as a church?
And remember that every act, every nutrient, every piece of
that soil is needed. It doesn't always look the same.
And I think sometimes when you talk about compassion ministry
in churches, we all think it's, well, it has to look like this.
The reality is corporately, as a church, we are called to be
compassionate and we all have a part to play.
And so some of us in this room this morning may hear the words
whisper, you know what I need to pray.
Like we've been in this prayer series.
And this week our our focus for prayer and fasting on Wednesday
is missions. It is this stuff.
Our Versa Care ministry is missions on the local hand.
And some of you may be called to come and say, you know what, I
want to pray over our sessions. What would it look like if we
had a team of intercessors every time we open our door that just
pray through our Versa Care sessions and prayed for the
Spirit of God to move like we've never seen it move before in
this place? What happens if we had someone
who said, I want to pray for a team member that is on the front
row of our expression in Versa Care?
I want to commit every week to praise each member of the Versa
Care staff to walk with them through prayer.
Some of you are called to do that and it's a gap right now
that I believe will want us to shift in this place because we
are going to push in to engage together.
Some of us are called to actually serve, to say, you know
what, I'm free on a Monday or I'm free on a Wednesday or I'm
free on a Tuesday and I'd love to come in and help Yvonne sort
the storage room or I'd love to give some administration
support. I'd love to whatever it might
be, you might have time and resource to come and literally
serve in part of what we do in the week.
Some of us though, in this room are called to be radically
generous, not because it's another fundraising tick, but
because you're yes to being radically generous is a
prophetic voice into the wilderness of people's lives to
prepare the way of the Lord to be made known in their life.
And I'm going to be really honest with you, in the current
culture that we live in, fundraising is tough.
And particularly when you are a church and you say that Jesus is
the only hope and the church needs to rise.
We need people that will say, you know what?
I believe in what you're doing. I believe that the Lord is
asking us to be a prophetic voice.
And so I'm going to give and you can do that individually.
You can do it through all our normal channels of giving and
just you can make the memo versa care.
You can sign up to be a regularly monthly donor, and I'm
not pressuring anyone. I'm simply asking you to ask the
Lord, How am I supposed to engage?
How am I supposed to prepare the way of the Lord for people who
are experiencing poverty and injustice on our doorstep to
have the opportunity to encounter Jesus?
You know, maybe you love biking, maybe you love running.
I don't know what it is. You know, we have Paul who's
doing the Christmas treasure hunt and all the funds from that
are going into Versa care. We get to have fun while we do.
Compassion doesn't have to be all serious, right?
There are all kinds of ways to engage and there are about 1000
other ways that I could go through.
But church, I'm asking you this morning, we all have the
capacity to carry hope in this room.
And we all have the capacity to, to believe that what comes next,
that the glory of the Lord will be revealed to all people, not
just a remnant inside this room, to the whole world will see the
glory of God as we demonstrate his love in the world.
And so finally, I want to say this, that we are going to be a
people of expectation in this room because here at the end of
Isaiah, the promise is real that the glory of the Lord will be
revealed and all will see it together when we do what only we
can do. God does what only he can do.
We don't manufacture transformation.
We aren't the saviours. We make spaces for it.
We give Jesus our yes and he fills that space with his glory,
one life at a time. So would you stand with me?