Right as you start making your way back, let me introduce we
are starting a brand new series today.
We are starting a series called Lifeboat.
And when you as you think a lifeboat, that is the sort of
thing I want you to be thinking of.
Not these kind of little rubber dinghies that are on the side,
big cruise ships. I want to be thinking of a
search and rescue crew who are going through the stormy seas to
rescue, to search for people. And over the next 5 weeks, we
are going to be embarking on a journey through our 5 core
values. We like to revisit this this
every, every so often going through our 5 core values.
And we're going to look at our 5 core values through the lens
that the church, that we as the church are called to be our
lifeboats. We are called to be a rescue
team. And so as we look through our
five values, each week, we're going to be looking at a
different aspect of a lifeboat and then using that as a
metaphor to describe one of our five values.
And this week, we're going to be doing our first value, which is
biblical truth. And I want to think I want you
to think of biblical truth as the as the navigational system
or on a boat. You see, we have been we've been
designed, we've been designed to go into the storms of this
world. We've been designed as a church
to go in as as Kofu ended our time of worship saying that
actually that we want to pray that how we act when we love
Jesus, when we put him first, that positively effects those
around us because that's what we're designed to do.
We are designed to to to go into the storms of this world and be
rescuers. We're designed and the way that
we are kept on course, the way that we we navigate this world
is through this through his scripture.
You see, Jesus tells us, he asks us to listen and obey his words
in the Great Commission. He tells us to go into all the
world and tell everyone what I told you, what I told you, and
so that they would obey it. And Jesus designed us, has
designed us, not to be on our own, but to be part of a crew,
to live our lives as part of a crew, to live our lives in, in
community to we are designed to live, to live in membership.
We are designed to be joined to a local church that we are
designed to do life together and, and, and for us what, what
it means to be in membership of this church.
Actually, what we do quite often is is Jen and I, we, we've done
several, we call it foundations courses where we take people for
several weeks and we just go through our vision and values as
a church. And at the end of that we say,
are you on board? Do you want to sign up to that?
And now we haven't been able to do that last term.
And actually what we're going to do, we haven't got a date yet
set, but at some point this, this term, over the next few
weeks, what we're going to do is we're going to say, if you are
new to this church, if you've, if you've been around me for the
last few months to a year and we haven't done foundations with
you, we're going to invite you to come back for, for lunch
afterwards. And then I'm going to just
expound a bit more on what it means to be a member of this
church and then ask you to say, are you in or not?
Because basically what it means to be a member, what it means to
be a member of anything, but what it means to be a member of
this church is that you are a Christian who is committed to
serving the body. And it means you want to.
And now that looks differently, different people in different
situations. Some of us are more able than
others. Some of us are in different
seasons and we're able to do more and some are able to do
less. But the commitment is there that
you're, you want to serve the body.
Secondly, that you are committed to give that you want to give
finances, you want to trust God with your, with part of your
finances to, to this this church.
Thirdly, that you are committed to unity, that you that the
Bible says that we are to use our our mouths, use our voices
for the good of others to speak well of others, not not fluff
them up, but actually to speak, speak truth to one another, to
encourage one another. And fourthly, that we're
committed to showing up. We're committed to being around
one another, to being here. And it's really hard to be to be
in a community if you're never actually in that community.
So we we say, and I will talk about this more for those of you
who who are able to come, but we're committed to serve,
committed to give, committed to unity and committed to show up.
You see, being part of a church is like being part of a crew on
a lifeboat that we are. We're not here on Pamper Cruise.
We're here. We're designed to be deployed,
to be launched into the churning, shundering sea.
And our mission, every single one of us, our mission is to, is
to embark into these waters to find lost people, people who are
drowning, who are, who are cast adrift, who are in the sea, who
are hopeless. And the problem is if we just
set out is that as our mission, but we have no, no anchor
points, no, no navigational system.
Those of you who've been on boats, those of you who maybe
you've done a cross channel crossing, maybe to Ireland or to
Man or to France, or maybe you've even been fortunate
enough to go on a cruise. You all know that it doesn't
take too long before 1:00 on that boat when there are no
landmarks, the shoreline disappears completely.
And you have no idea. And especially if it's if it's a
grey day, if it's stormy, there is no way of telling which ways,
which which ways. NE southwest.
Where's land, Where's shallow water?
Where's, where's rocky seas? There's no way of telling.
And to the sailor, they depend on their navigational system to
guide them through these these these seas.
And if they ignore it, they have a very real risk of being
completely shipwrecked or being lost at sea.
You see, taking God's word seriously isn't optional for us
as Christians. It is.
It's not a case of, well, I might have or I might not.
Actually taking God's word seriously actually is a matter
of life and death for us. It is our navigational system.
And so quick throw out there, when did you last look at it?
When did you last spend time poring over it, studying it,
taking time to let it influence you?
When did you last take time to maybe just even just listen to
it being read to you? And today I want to, I want to
look at Luke chapter 8. But before I get there, I'm
going to go a page before in my Bible, Luke chapter 6, and it
says this about the words it says Jesus says why do you call
me Lord, Lord and not to what I say that might be some of us
here, we will tell people I'm a Christian.
We say here what, Yeah, I'm a Christian, but Jesus, but you
don't do what I ask you to. You ignore my words.
You haven't even looked at it. He says, As for As for everyone
who comes to me and hears my word and puts it into practise,
I will show you what they are like.
They are like a man building a house who dug down deep and lay
the foundations on a rock, when a flood came and the torrent
struck that house, but it could not shake it because it was well
built. But the one who hears my words
and does not put them into practise is like the man who
built a house on the grounds without foundation.
The moment the torrent struck the house, it collapsed and the
destruction was complete. See his words, they're not just
suggestions. And when Jesus says those who
obey my word, I don't know if you've any of you've got a Bible
like this. You see in my Bible, I'm opening
the Gospels and you see there's black words and there's red
words. Now, someone decided at some
point that the words that they deemed that Jesus actually said
that came out of his mouth as he was going around Galilee and
Judea and all their surrounding areas, those we'd write in red
and the rest of the Bible will write in black as if they're
more important. We need to listen to these words
more than we do the rest of the Bible.
And that's not true. That's not true.
Every single word in our Bibles from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22
is inspired by God. It is his word, and it is there
for our instruction. It is there for our correction.
It's there for our for for our encouragement.
Peter tells Timothy, See, we are called to study it, to look at
it, to read it, to be in it and and, you know, put Paul and not
Paul, Peter would say of Paul in Scripture.
Some of it's really hard to understand, especially some of
that stuff that Paul writes. It's really hard to understand.
But that doesn't mean that we shelve it.
It means that we have to take extra care to study it, extra
care to, to ask questions of it, to ask others about what, what,
what is it talking about? I don't really understand.
It seems to say this thing here and it seems to say another
thing over here. What, what, what is going on?
It just takes a bit more work. You see, most people,
unfortunately, Christians included, don't live their lives
on the rock, don't live their lives on the word that Jesus
spoke. They lived their lives on what
we use with our analogy, we'll use the waves.
Culture, Jesus might say shifting sands.
See, waves are never the same. They're always moving.
Culture, it's always changing. And if we try and gauge what is
true, what is right, if we build ourselves, we build our lives,
we build church upon what culture says is good and true,
we're lost. We're going to be running around
in circles. We're going to run out of
energy. We're just going to be lost
completely at sea because because it changes all the time.
Think of some of the stuff, crazy stuff that our government
thinks is good and true. Now you go about 20 years ago,
no one even thought like that thing.
The culture is changing all the time, but this does not.
People also they, they, they. Rather than building their life
upon the work of Scripture, upon Jesus in His Word, we build our
lives on our guts. Follow your heart.
How? What does it say?
Follow your emotions. Well, the trouble is that if
you're in a stormy sea, your emotions quite often are jump
overboard, which is an awful thing to do.
I mean, we are to build our lives on something that is firm.
You know, we've had Tomi Tolu recently, have given birth to
two wonderful babies. And now if you know, if anyone
who's had had children, you know that that before that child is
born, when there are no problems, when everything's
calm, when you're thinking clearly, you make a birth plan,
don't you? You say, this is what I want.
This is what's going to happen. You know, at this stage, we're
going to go to the hospital. We're not going to go to the
hospital. We're going to ring the midwife.
We're going to do XYZI want I want it to happen this way.
I want this, that and the other. And if if things go wrong, well,
maybe do this and you make those decisions in the calmness
because when you're about to give birth is not a good time to
decide life and death situations.
It's not you you need to do make it in the calmness.
And then then, and it's the same thing with life.
We need to build our life on this.
And then when things go wrong, when the storms come, we're
already on good foundations rather than going, oh, oh, I
never thought about this. My gut says I should do this.
Let's go that way. And we end up falling overboard.
See, the truth is though, that when we ignore God's words, when
we ignore the navigational system, quite often what happens
is we don't straight away go onto the rocks.
More often than not we will find ourselves a couple of degrees of
course, and before we know it we are miles and miles and miles
away from what God had for his best for us.
I mean, think of you can name church movements, churches that
started off so well and then they started basing their truth
not on this, but on what culture said was true, what their gut
said was true and they end up being miles away.
They even have sometimes have people follow them.
But Jesus says that is awful. That is awful when people follow
them. He says to the Pharisees,
actually he says the same thing. He says woe to you, teach to the
law and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you shut the door of
the Kingdom of heaven in people's faces.
You yourselves do not enter, nor you let anyone else, anyone
enter who is trying to. Woe to teach to the law of
Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel.
This is where we can get if we're not following His words.
You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when
you have succeeded, you make them twice a child of hell as
you are. Woe to you, you blind guides.
See what she's saying is that if we ignore His word, we might
have a real heart for the lost. We might have a real heart to
see people saved. He wants people to go to heaven.
We want people to, to live for eternity.
But if we're not following his words, then we might speak to
people. They might love what we're
saying, but we're, we're, we're, we're not just leading our,
we're leading ourselves to death and them because this is true
and not what the world says. So I said, I want to, I want to
read Luke 8 to you. And so I'm going to open it.
It says, it says, it says, it says.
While a large crowd was gathering and the people were
coming to Jesus from town after town, he told them this parable.
A farmer went to sow his seed. Some fell along the path.
It was trampled on and the birds ate it up.
Some fell on rocky grounds, and when it came up the plants
withered because they had no moisture.
Other seed fell among thorns which grew up with it and choked
the plants. Still other seed fell on good
soil. It came up and yielded A crop
100 times more than was sown. When he had said this, he called
out. Whoever has ear to ears to hear,
let them hear. His disciples asked him what
this parable meant. He said the knowledge of the
secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others
I speak in parables so that though seeing they may not see,
and though hearing they may not understand.
This is the meaning of the parable.
The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the
ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the
words from from their hearts so that they may not believe and be
saved. Those on the rocky ground are
the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but
they hear it but they have no root.
The ones who receive the word, no sorry.
They believe for a while, but in time of testing they fall away.
The seed that fell among the thorns stands for those who
hear, but they go on their way. They are choked by life's
worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.
But the seed on the good soil stands with those with no, with
a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by by
persevering produce a crop. See, Jesus begins this parable
by saying there's a farmer and he's scatter seed.
Now in the, in the, in the Greco Roman world, they didn't have,
obviously they didn't have machines like we have, which
plant seeds perfectly in the right place to produce the
maximum amount of yield for their crop.
They just had a guy with a bag and he just threw it, just threw
it randomly, randomly all around.
And you know, you'd get patched of seeds going in some places.
You get no seed in another place.
Some seed like you said here, some seed would fall on Stony
grounds, fall on a path. Some seed would would fall among
weeds and a bit a bit would fall among on the good soil.
I think it was from reading some stuff on ancient cultures, I
think it was about 1/4 of the seed that was actually sown
actually made onto good soil and actually produced a harvest.
So they weren't indiscriminate of where they put it.
And what Jesus says is the seed. It is his words.
It's his words. Jesus gives it freely to all.
We all can receive his word. We can all receive.
We can all hear from God, but the the different soils they are
how our heart responds to that word.
So Jesus identifies his his his word, his word.
It's it's like the the data that you input into your into your
navigational system. It's good, it's pure, it's
perfect. But the soil is like us looking
at that navigational system and we either ignore it, pay a
little attention to it, or we focus in on it and learn
everything about it. And he says that there's four
different types of ways that people respond to his word.
He says first, the hard path. He says that's the the closed
system. Is it though, that these are
people who hear the truth, but due to life circumstances, due
to their attitude, it doesn't penetrate even an inch into
their hearts? These are those who have the
navigational system, but they've switched it off.
We believe that we know how to navigate the dangerous seas
better than the Creator does, and the result in that is death.
There is no life in that response.
The second response, he says there's rocky soil and that's
the that's as we've looked at a bit already, that's the
emotional navigator. This is the one who who
navigates by their guts, their, their, their, their, they love
it. Sailing's amazing, Sun's out,
calm breeze. It's amazing.
I'll do this all my life. I'll live for you, Jesus,
forever. And then the waves get up and
the winds start blowing in and it's like, no, I'm not doing
this anymore. There's nothing.
I'm not. I'm not going for this.
And there's no life in that. There's no life.
The third soil is the thorny soil.
I want to spend a bit of time on this one because this represents
the distracted crew member. And I think that sums up a lot
of the church in our nation, the distracted crew member.
These are these are those who who might hear God's words.
You know, they might, might even read it from time to time.
But honestly, most of the time they're looking at social media
with a compass in their hand. You're getting completely
distracted. Now this is this is, this is the
person who knows that God's word says your energy, your time is a
gift from me. And you know, that's true, but
I'm tired and I don't really want to serve.
And so I'm not. So I'm not.
This is the person who says, who says, I know that everything
I've given my job comes from you, God.
But fuel prices have gone up. You know that car insurance is
due. And I really like my sky
package. And God will understand.
God understands. And so you don't use what God
has given you for His Kingdom. This is those who when someone
hurts you, when someone says something, rather than
forgiving, you choose not to forgive.
Actually, when someone else says something negative about them,
you join in. You join in.
You join in to bring people down.
You know who should lift people up?
You know should concourage, You know who should challenge poor
behaviour. But you don't do any of that.
It's easier just to in little circles to find people who you
can, who who think the same as you and bring others down.
You know that leads to death, but it's easier.
This is the person who who knows that God calls us to live in
community, that the early church's example model to us is
they met together in each other's homes and then on the
first day of the week, Sunday, they came together and
worshipped God. This is the person who says,
well, I've, I've got stuff on. I really can't move that class.
That's on a Wednesday night now Sunday's my only day off, rather
than I'm going to give that to God.
You see, the reason why we do that, the reason why we ignore
his book, the reason why we ignore what Jesus says, the
reason why we quite often choose decisions that lead to death
rather than life, is because we've forgotten who we are.
We've forgotten who Jesus has created us to be.
We've forgotten our very reason for being.
And I love it. In one pizza Peter tells us, he
tells us straight, this is who you have been created to be.
In one Peter 2 Peter says this. He says, now to you who believe
this stone is precious, there's Jesus in his word.
He's talking about this stone is precious.
So if you believe in Jesus, he's saying he should be precious to
you. He is precious to you.
And therefore everything that he has said should be precious to
you, he says. But to those who do not believe
the stone the builders have rejected has become a has become
the cornerstone and a stumbling that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they
disobey his words. They disobey the message, which
is also what we were designed for, he's saying.
People wonder why, why life isn't working out for them.
They wonder why, think why they keep stumbling.
It's because they're ignoring his words.
His very word has become a stumbling block to them, he
says, But you, those who have placed their their lives in
Jesus hand, those who have have said, Jesus, you are my Lord and
Saviour. Peter says you are a chosen
people, you're a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
You are God's special possession that you may declare the praises
of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful
light. Once you were not a people, but
now you are the people of God. Once you had not receive mercy,
but now you have received mercy. See if if Jesus is your Lord, if
Jesus is your Saviour, he says, he says that there's no
obligation to read his words. There's no, there's no
obligation to live how he calls you to.
It's actually we get to, we get to, we get to live for him and
we get to, we get to live for him because it's who we were
created to be that actually we get to And as we do, as we've
brought in that word, as we as we do, as we, as we live for
him, others are affected. Others are affected with where
they're called to share his wonderful light in this Dark
World, in the, in the shunnering waters of the dark sea.
We are called to share his word and that that can be with our
voices, but that can also just be being living as Christ, as
your Lord and Saviour. Others see, and I just want to
give a really quick example on that.
I was, I was reminded of this the other week.
I don't know if anyone's ever seen this.
It's a couple years old now this study, but it's it's a study on
Christian parents and how how they live effects their
children. Now, you may be there thinking,
I am not a parent. How does it affect me?
Well, look at it this way. The way that you live, the way
that you conduct yourself, the way that you take this seriously
effects those closest to you. It really does.
And it says, you know, it says here for Christian parents,
people who call themselves Christians when neither parent
is active. What I mean by active, what it
means by active is they're not serving, they're not giving,
they're they're not not regularly attending a a church,
they're not part of a church. For them, the study found 0% of
their children grew up as sold out loving Jesus.
Now 19% would say they love Jesus, they follow him, but zero
percent, The percent that we actually want, 0% actually end
up following because they've not been modelled it.
For those with with a mum who is active, who's loving who's
who's, who's active in the church, but dad is completely
absent. We see that 2% in this study
found were were committed to Jesus, 37% might go to church
but only 2% are committed, sold out for Christ.
For those where it is, where the dad is committed but mum isn't,
interestingly jumps up to 44%. And I just want to just make a
note here. OK guys, You are called in
scripture to be the spiritual head of your home.
And now the world might tell you that what you do and say doesn't
matter. What business is it of yours,
what your children are doing? What business is it, what
they're looking at on their phones?
What business is it of yours? What they're, what they're
watching, who they're hanging out with.
Well, this study says actually men, especially if you are
leading your home, if you're showing them how to follow
Christ, that has a massive impact on your family.
And then if both parents are sold out following Jesus, it
says 80% will say that they're Christians.
Interestingly, 33% it goes down a bit and now the reason for
that, I looked that up, I want to know why does it go down?
Surely it should go up the RE and I'm sure it's maybe the
reason for that is, is that unfortunately many Christians
are sold out for Jesus, but they don't tell their kids why.
And that what this is the reason why that goes down when both
parents is, is because when dad chooses to, but mom doesn't or
mom choose to and dad doesn't, the children see that there's a
choice. There's a choice in life.
We get to follow Jesus or we don't.
Where when both it's where, if in your family, it's you go to
church because you have to what, why, why?
And there's no teaching. There's no saying we, we go to
church because we love his family, because we love Jesus.
We want to be there and worship with him.
We, we give, you know, we give our money.
You know, we give up. Tell your kids that you give,
tell them. I mean, if you don't, don't tell
them you give don't like them. But you know, if you give, tell
them that you give and say why, why, why?
You know, because, because actually, you know, I know that
we say that we struggle with money sometimes, but actually we
trust God more than we trust our bank accounts.
That has a massive impact. And that's the the reason for
that drop is for parents who follow Jesus.
It's kind of the typical missionary family who are sold
out for Jesus, but they lose. They don't evangelise their
kids. So don't be that.
Is it the reason why this matters is because if we are not
following the word of God for not following his words, we not
only will end up cast adrift shipwrecking our lives, the ones
we most love will also be shipwrecked as well.
You see in in sailing before they had had GPS in modern
navigational systems, how did sailors defined which way was N
SE, W the stars? Yes, and especially the North
Star. Why?
Because it's north. Why the North Star in
particular? What doesn't it do that the
other stars do in the night sky? It doesn't change.
It's always north as you go through the seasons.
Obviously it's because we're moving through the, you know,
the universe, whatever. But yeah, as you go through the
seasons, as you go through the day, you go through the night.
The stars, they move around, don't they?
But the North star, it stays in the same point.
And so to navigate, they needed a fixed point.
This is our fixed point. When we feel bad or good.
It does not change when politicians change.
This does not change when our bank account is good.
When our bank account is bad, it doesn't change when we get good
news from the doctor or where we get bad news from the doctor.
This book does not change, you see, and we are called to take
it seriously, which means that we trust it.
We are called to be a sailor who despite what they see outside
with the storm raging in the that the waves rolling over the
deck, we are called to take this seriously and follow it.
That means that that when you look at your bank statements,
you go, there's not much in that God, I'm going to give you a
pass this month. We go, no, this book says I'm to
be generous. And so we give and it'll be
hard, but we know that that's the road that leads to life.
When someone really annoys us and we just want to hate them,
we say no. That's my gut talking.
That's not God's words. If I, if I, if I hate them, if I
don't forgive them, that road leads to death.
But if I forgive them, if I, if I work things out, the scripture
tells me that road leads to life.
See, when we, when we follow Jesus, when we follow him, we
are called to be those of the last soil.
We're called to be good soil. We're called to be good soil.
We're called to be people who trust, who trust this, who trust
what God says, who trust God's words.
You see, when, when we follow Jesus and his words, what Jesus
is saying is, is that we produce fruit, that there are effects,
there are ripples from us following Jesus.
Then it's, it's bigger than just us.
It says that that those those who were the sea, those who were
the ground, whether who received the word that they they they
grew up and they produced a crop 100 times more.
I mean that seems impossible. What he's saying is is that that
when we follow Jesus, when we stay true to his word, God is
producing fruit through you. And yet some of that you will
see some of it you may never see until eternity.
I there. I believe there'll be many
conversations in eternity. That's where we realise that
thing we did that affected someone we never knew, that
might have even affected generations later.
We were talking yesterday and I was just noting that there are
churches in London now, in South London, who are still benefiting
from Spurgeon. I mean what, 100 and 5200 years
ago. I mean a long time ago him and
him and his ministry was about. But there are people still
benefiting. I believe if we follow this and
then we will find people in eternity who in 100 years time
are still benefiting from the fruit that has been reaped from
what we have, the lives that we have LED.
You see, see, don't, don't mishear me.
We are not saved because we read this.
We're not saved because we produce fruit.
Jesus says that we are saved. And using this this lifeboat
analogy, we are saved because Once Upon a time we were lost at
sea. We were drowning, we had no
hope, but Jesus came and he sent his lifeline and he pulled us
ashore. That is how we are saved.
We are saved because of Christ, not because of what we did or
because of what we will do, but because of what Christ has done
and who he is. No other reason.
We are saved through Jesus Christ and Christ alone.
But just like this, this piece of barley that's been planted by
this seed, barley naturally produces a head of a head of
corn. It naturally produces fruits.
And So what Jesus saying is, is that if we follow him, we're not
saved because we do good works, because we produce fruits.
If we follow him, we will just produce good fruits.
It's who we are. It's who who we're called to be.
It's what we do. You see, we we're just like a an
apple tree. An apple tree produces apples
because it's an apple tree. Christian you are called to.
You will produce fruit because you're a Christian.
If you are say there's not and Jesus doesn't say there are some
Christians who are fruitless and they're a waste of space really.
And, and there are other Christians who produce fruit.
No, no, what you're saying is if you're a Christian, if you
follow him, if you, if you study his word, you will just produce
fruit because it's who you are. It's who you are called to be.
You know, and, and, and life may get hard at times and if things
get expensive, time may be short.
But we worship a God revealed in his scriptures who has not just
overcome the world. We have an amazing illustration
in Scripture of the the chaos waters and a boat really
struggling in those chaos waters.
And then we have Jesus, our God who hasn't just overcome.
He just walks on the chaos waters.
He takes a stroll on them, all evil, all injustice.
He tramples it under his feet, but he not only walks on it.
If we follow him, he says, take my hand and we get to walk on it
too. That doesn't mean we don't go
through hard times. That means that we are more than
conquerors. It means that we get to
overcome. It means that when money is
tight, we can trust. We can supernaturally trust when
energy is short. We can supernaturally trust when
all you have in your own self it is tiredness and you're not
really wanting to be around people today.
Actually, God, the hope of glory is in you and you are able to
encourage and love, not because you're good, but because the
King lives in you. He has enabled us to overcome.
See, we are called to bring life to this lost and broken worlds.
But what we're going to be looking at in this series is, is
we don't just save people so they can have a nice time on the
beach. You are saved people and saved
people saved people as what we are called to do and we can we
start by knowing what we're saving them to by knowing the
Saviour, by knowing his word, by focusing on his navigational
system. Like I said, our first value is
biblical truth. That this that I want to be a
person. I want you to be people.
I want this to be a church that that that bases its life upon
his scriptures. And maybe you're sat here today
and you know that you're not building your life on these
scriptures. Maybe you know that you haven't
lived your life on Christ the rock and you're adrift today.
You can find mercy today. You can find grace today you can
say, Jesus, I want to follow you on and put my life upon you,
upon your foundation. And for the rest of us, like I
said, to be we're, we're, we want.
I don't want just a load of people sat in seats coming every
Sunday. I want people who say I'm on
mission with you. I want to, I want to give, I
want to serve. I want to, I want to be united
with you. I want to show up.
But regardless of how you feel, where you think, think that you
are, whether that's for you right now, every single one of
us today, Jesus saying, will you commit to building your life
upon his words? Will you commit to building your
life upon the truth revealed in Scripture?
Don't just read it. Don't just hear it, but live it
out. Study its coordinates, trust the
instrument, and you will not only avoid going, being cast
adrift, shipwrecked on rocks, but you will lead yourself into
the life that Jesus has for you and many, many others.
Can we pray? Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, I want to thank you for your word.
God, I want to thank you that even though some of it is really
hard to understand, Lord Jesus, some of it we need to, we need
to, we need to Mull over and Mull over Lord Jesus, Lord God.
But the fact remains that it is good.
Lord Jesus, it is your very word spoken to us, Lord Jesus, and I
want to thank you that you have given us this word so that we
can build our lives on the firm foundation, Lord Jesus.
And I pray, Lord God, if there's any here that haven't built
their lives on your firm foundation, Lord Jesus, if
there's any here who once wanted to, but if but have gone astray,
maybe those who've got and got distracted by the wind and the
waves, who've been choked out by the weeds or God, what they've
become more interested in, in, in money and job and, and other
things. Or Jesus, I pray, Lord God, that
you would bring them back to you today.
Lord Jesus, I pray, Lord God, that we would be a church that
is united after you, Lord God, and as we prioritise getting to
know you through your scriptures, that we as a church,
we as a people would produce a harvest 100 times greater than
we are. Amen.