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In this podcast, we share our sermons and teaching from our Sunday Celebrations + some other additional teaching content.
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Good evening. It's great to be with you. It's great to be in the northwest. As you can hear, I am a Londoner. However, I couldn't find any prissy women in London, so I'm married, one from the Wirral. And so it's great. Yeah, it's great to be back, though I do not share her passion for Liverpool, but we'll leave that to another day.
Sermons are not opportunities to advertise ministry, however. I'm just feeling like you wanna hear a little bit more about the. I so do a few minutes on the I then move on is okay. So the Evangelical Alliance was started in 1846 with two aims one uniting evangelicals in reaching the lost in every corner of the United Kingdom. We are good news, people.
In a bad news world. But to give the church a clear, effective and united voice into every layer of society now that we would, let's deal with that. Because let's be honest, some people are trying to ruin it, but it is not redundant. It just needs redeeming a bit. It means four things one. We believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
Stop changing Scripture to accommodate your culture and start changing your culture with the truth. In the pages of the Word of God. Secondly, we believe the death and resurrection of Jesus is the single most important thing to ever have happened. Thirdly, we believe in the need for conversion. You don't come to faith by osmosis. Everyone doesn't end up in heaven anyway.
You get on your knees and you meet your Jesus. And fourthly, we believe in being active in the world, making the world more like the kingdom. For evangelicals historically so involved in health care, abolition of the slave trade, provision of education in recent years, Christians against poverty, food bank, street pastors, local schools, work projects like we talked about before.
And another thing about being an evangelical is an acceptance. No one part of the church will change the UK on its own. No one church will change Southport on its own. There are over 80 network streams or denominations within the Evangelical Alliance's membership, and we have a member organization made up of 3000 churches like this one. If your church isn't a member, it's okay, there's loads of grace.
Crack on and join 500 organizations and currently 23,000 individuals who come together to say, let's make Jesus known. I say to everyone, go deep in your postcode vote. Don't let us get in your way locally. Love your place, your space, your community. Go really deep locally, but do not avoid being involved in the national story too. Together we can be the church nationally as well.
We will never get in your way locally, but we will speak up and stand up and act up nationally. And what we do is we speak up. We, we do all we can to help evangelism, but we also speak up in the corridors of power. Some of it's really hard. Let me be honest. I've stood in places like that, in places like the House of Lords, House of Commons number ten, and said some of the hardest things that needed to be said.
But why? Because the voice of the church must be heard. I've also had the chance to pray with people most people can't get near. Why? Because the compassion of the church has to be felt. But you know what? In our day, we want to be people of the evangel. Good news people, and our access to the corridors of power is insane at the moment.
One reason are two reasons. One Covid that got us in the room. They didn't realize it's hard to get us out again. And two election year. We might not know the date, but everyone wants to meet us. It's lots of fun. The only thing I will do, literally, is make friends.
It's a good one in it. But here's the thing, friends. We can take your voice to places it would never get otherwise. Will you give us your voice to add to the many others as we speak up and speak out some of it sometimes on really hard moral issues, making sure that we're declaring what the Bible says on things.
But other times it's also to say the church is here to to serve and to help and this is what we can do, and this is where we can do it. And other times, to be honest, is to say, this is what the church needs. Can you help us? But we want that kind of ordinated voice and right now, we're seeing all kinds of changes happen.
We're seeing all kinds of people listening to us. But my favorite one in my time, I to show what difference it makes to speak the coordinate voices. Do you remember when the government said that? No to this morning. The government said they wanted to offset all youth work in Sunday schools. Absolutely ridiculous. Suggested public regulation of private religion.
When did you move to Saudi Arabia? I mean, it's honestly it's absolutely bonkers that people would critique a faith illiterate culture with critique and assess how well you're describing a young people. That's an absolute infringement of religious liberty. It's an outrageous suggestion, and to be honest, it's a bit bonkers. So we went in with one voice and said, there's no way you can do this on our watch.
It's up to you. Outrageous. On behalf of all our membership, please don't do this. And if kicked into the long grass, why? Because we speak as one. We will keep speaking as one. Just last week, I was with some very senior folks in the Labor Party able to say what we want from the Labor Party, but also what we need them to know about us and what we are absolutely unmovable on.
Friends. We need to keep speaking up and speaking out. In our culture, the most noise comes from the smallest groups. I don't want us to get rights, but I want us to be heard and I will in my role, take bullets for local churches so individuals don't have to. But here's the thing friends. The Evangelical Alliance is not a staff starting.
It's an alliance of churches, organizations and individuals. Every member is as much part of the I as I am, and let's drive forward together. So we've set ourselves a target. And here's the thing. It used to be the church membership got you through the door of the corridors of power. As you all have noticed, we live in an individualized culture, don't we?
Individualism is the story of our day. That's why it's now the individual membership. So often it's the leverage to the corridors of power. Whether we like it or not, we still need the church members, but the individual membership is the one they measure so often. So we've set ourselves a target to get to 50,000 individual members in the next decade.
In the last year, we've recruited 5000 new members. That's the most of any year since 1995. Why? Because we're serious about the fact that we need to speak up for the church. But here's the thing why 50,002 reasons one, it's the same membership as the Lib Dems. Bear with me. We are not a political party, but it's an issue of scale.
The Evangelical Alliance has 50,000 individual members. A new prime minister rings me, not the other way around. We need people to be aware of the size of the church, who are Orthodox, Bible believing and wanting to change this nation with the gospel. But secondly, for every person signed up, there's an acceptance. There's 20 to 25 people that are with you that haven't actually signed up.
So if we have 50,000 individuals and 3000 churches, we can talk in representation in terms of millions, not hundreds of thousands. That makes such a difference as we speak up and out for the church. So what we'll ask you is if you are a personal member, please stay with us as long as you've got a pulse. If you're not a personal member, could you just crack on and become one?
It costs 3 pound a month, you say. Why does it cost? I'll tell you what it costs because if it's free, it's about as useful as a Facebook group. The government don't know how much I membership is, but it needs to cost something for it to show a certain level of buying. But here's the thing, friends. It's not about money.
It's about voice. We will never put your price up. We might for new people, but we'll never put your price up. I promise you that. And if you're married, don't even check with your spouse. You can sign up as a couple for the same price. It counts as two when we go in and speak up and out. But would you tonight do us a favor and help us get towards that 50,000 so you can go deep locally, but be connected nationally.
And if you do, I want to give you a present. Why I like you. Why else? Let me be honest, friends, I said to my board last year, I'll stay for at least another decade to do all I can to unite evangelicals in sharing the gospel and speaking up on issues that matter. And when you do that, I am a I'm a marmite character in this nation.
Lots of people don't like me. They tell me on social media in the most unkind ways. If you do like what we're about, we need those that do like us to stand with us, because those that don't certainly tell me about it, I'll do anything to help you join. If you need a kidney, I can help one of you.
Anyway, in this box, there's a few presents. If you sign up tonight. Firstly, book. My wife Ann and I wrote unleashed. What does it mean to live like that at church today? Secondly, and this is so important, my favorite resource at the moment speak up, we did this is the Lawyers Christian Fellowship. It's the antidote to the newspaper.
You might read the newspaper you might read might say, you can't preach on the street. It's not true. It might say, you can't show your faith. It works. Not true. It might say you can't wear a cross to work. That's not true. It might say you have to wear a rainbow lanyard and use pronouns. If you told you that's not true.
So what we decided to do was remind Christians what the law says about where we can or can't share the gospel, because that's what really matters. And if you know there's a million face sharing moments a week and on average, four stories in the news, a year of people getting into trouble, sharing their faith, you do the maths.
So we got to get the lowest Christian fellowship. We've got more freedom to share the gospel in the UK than just about any country on earth. It's good news, isn't it? But use those freedoms in your children, in your children's children to lose them. And here's the thing as well. I'm often asked, what's the one tip to not get into trouble for sharing your faith at work?
Share it more.
People say, what do you mean? Well, your faith is a protected characteristic in law, like your sexuality, your ethnicity, or your gender is protected. If you only tell people you're a Christian once every five years and try and make them go to church, that might be proselytize it. If you talk about your faith regularly, that's a protected characteristic in law.
So your Christianity just needs to be normal in the workplace. You don't get into trouble. The more you talk about Jesus at work, the more legal protection you have. Isn't that good news? There's a few. Yeah.
There's a few other things in here, but excitingly. And this really will swing the deal. If you're not sure there's an E8 keyring, bear with me this bit. It's got a logo and it's a fake detachable quid. You know, increasingly cashless society. When you need a supermarket trolley, you'll be so grateful you join the AA when you need a locker at a gym.
Happy days. All I ask is each time you use it, would you pray the three things? I genuinely use mine as a prompt to pray. I pray that the church would be united in this nation. I pray that the voice of the church would be heard effectively in the corridors of power. And I pray that together we meet Jesus.
Now let's pray, shall we? Lord, forgive me for overselling amongst your people. But, Lord, you know the motive is simply to see your church rise up in this land. Be all it needs to be, and see this nation one for you. Lord, I pray your church be united. I pray that here in Southport, I pray your church would be united.
I pray, Lord, that your church would act as as your bride in this place. I pray, Lord, your church would be heard effectively in the corridors of power, from Westminster to parent governor meetings to other things in the middle. Lord, I pray that your voice would be heard louder than the voice of the crowd. And I pray, Lord, that we would together make you node.
Amen. So I want to speak to you tonight about what it means to be a witnessing church. So if you've got a Bible, turn it on. Go to acts 28 or open it up. If you've got an old one like me. Page 965. I'm going to talk from all of acts 28, but I'm going to focus on just for now.
I'm going to read verses 30 and 31 where it says this. In fact, from 28 we'll read. Therefore, I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen. For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and thought about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.
I think sometimes we misunderstand what we're here for. If you've got the wrong information, you come to the wrong conclusion, don't you? It was about a year ago. I was driving to preach somewhere. Now, just for context, I live in London, so I don't need a car a week. So we've got one car as a family, but each weekend to hire a car from a Sunday work horror from Europe car.
That's just for context. The problem with it, though, is, even though we pay for the cheapest possible car, they give me the nicest one they can, which they seem to help me out. But they've got this, like 90 grand yellow Mercedes we're not getting. Given that, that's a problem. If you rock up at someone's shift, a park miles away from the church.
But I was driving to preach in Birmingham and the hire car had. And I pulled into the Warwick services to go and get a coffee. I went to get my coffee and I went to reverse the car. Once I've got my coffee, when a big white police found me blue flashing lights pulled up behind me and stopped me reversing.
Two policemen got out the car, walked to my front window, asked me to get out the car, but he could see my hands. I got out the car. They said, where did you get the stolen car from? I said, Europe car. They said, where are you going? I said, to preach in Birmingham. Now I had the paperwork and as you can see on a Sunday, I tend to dress like a geography teacher.
So it didn't look too threatening. And quickly the situation got defuzed. The car had been marked as stolen on the National car database for NPR cameras. It's taken off between my home in north London and the Warwick services. When I went into the Warwick services, a warning went out for any police within ten minutes to come and apprehend this car thief.
Do you know, my greatest relief with hindsight was that I stopped. Can you imagine if I'd gone straight to the church and got arrested on a Sunday morning when I was preaching in the church? They had the wrong information. They came to the wrong conclusion. I think as a church, we fought for too long that this was for us, that this gathering together is for us, that that the church exists for us, that this is about making Christians spiritually fatter instead of reaching a world in desperate need.
The idea that we come to church, you know, people say to me things like, I didn't get much out of the worship this morning. I'm like, I didn't realize we gathered to worship you. Where's the relevance as to whether you've got anything out of it or not? You know, it was William Temple who was Archbishop of Canterbury during the Second World War who said the church is the only institution on earth designed primarily for the benefit of its nonmembers.
I think it's time we recalibrated and positioned ourselves towards others, because the world tells us all the time it's about me, it's all about me. It's all about me. When actually it's about others, right? Chapter 27 ends with Paul reassuring people they'll be safe, even though they didn't think so. They need to trust Paul and more importantly, the Lord God gets Paul safely to Rome, paves the way for the gospel to go forth in the most influential city in the Empire.
That's exciting, isn't it? You know, in Romans one, when Paul says, I'm bound, I'm eager, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Yeah, that would have been a crazy moment. Rome was the ultimate imperial power and pride. People have to go on a pseudo religious pilgrimage to stare in awe and wonder at what Rome had created. It was considered the most incredible thing in the world, the most powerful city, the pinnacle of human creation.
Didn't this Paul, a funny looking little fella with a bald patch, crooked legs, crooked nose, bad eyesight, no great rhetorical gifts, funny looking little fella. Since the most powerful city in the world, I'm bound. I mean, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Might have been laughed out of town in his day, but 2000 years on, Rome is in ruins.
And Jesus of life. Friends, we need to hold the bigger picture. And do we have the faith that God wants to do today? What he's done yesterday? Do we believe he wants us to be part of it? We're part of God's mission. We're all missionaries. I think one of the key messages for our world at the moment is every Christian is in full time service of Jesus.
It is not those ones do it. And those don't. You know if the Lord's got nothing else to do with you, he might use you like me over church leader. But you know what? Otherwise he'll put you out in the field working for him, serving him. We all need to play our part as missionaries in our space. And, you know, acts is interesting because it lacks a comfortable ending.
Of all the books in the Bible, acts is abrupt. It just ends with a bang. There's no real ending to it. This is because it's not finished at the end of acts, we're given the responsibility of continuing the journey. Acts 29 is a long chapter of Scripture that's been written since the book of acts, and we in our day play our part as it concludes and continues until he returns.
So three things as to what it means to be a witness in church. The first is this we need to look wider. We need to look wider. God is, after all, people. For too long, the church has often reached out to people that look, sound and smell like the people already in the church. It's time we looked wider.
It's time we said, Lord, break my heart for everyone in my community. It's time. We also believed that God could do more than we've limited him to. For some of us, we've made God small enough and cute enough that he won't disturb our comfort. But actually, we need to believe the same God of the book of acts, the same God of revival in China and Iran, lives in Southport.
And throughout the book of acts, the Holy Spirit has empowered the church to spread the word. We see geographic spreading Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria to Rome, basically in their minds, the ends of the earth. From there, it continues to spread rapidly in the coming centuries as we live out the acts 29 church. And I think the Lord wants to give us a wider vision and expecting to move in surprising ways.
I don't know what your Christian conference of choices, but let's can say new wine for a moment. So in acts eight, Philip is ministering in Samaria. What's going on in Samaria is new wine on acid. It's like no conference you've ever seen. There are exorcism. There are healings, there's salvations. If you need to write a newsletter, you are laughing.
If you're in Samaria, it's all happening. It's brilliant for raising money. It's perfect for TikTok. Everything is really kicking off. There's so many stories to tell. Why on earth would you ever leave Samaria where it's all happening? It's all kicking off and things are really taking place. But the Lord says to Philip, time to crack on. Leave the action and go to the desert to meet a eunuch on his own.
What crazy call. But what I love about Philip is he's obedient and he goes and meets the eunuch. And what he doesn't necessarily know is the eunuchs in the service of can this the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch becomes the first person to take the gospel to Africa, the most on fire continent. For Jesus to die, you see, part of being used wider is allowing the Lord to do stuff because he sees up here.
We only see it here. Will you allow the Lord to use you in surprising ways? We've got to dream wider, because what we've seen so far is not enough. There is so much more that the Lord wants to do here in Southport, and I hope this isn't the case. But sometimes we also have to stand up against some of what the church might say and say.
Actually, we're training for more. William Booth was in London and he was so upset about the state of the street people go broke his heart for the street people of London. And he went to this big conference. There was a presiding bishop at the front. And just to explain, in the day the booths were alive, the men sat down, says the women sat upstairs and they didn't talk to each other during the meetings.
And William Booth went to the front, and the presiding bishop asked him what he wanted to be commissioned into. And Booth said, I want to be commissioned to work release the lost and the Lost in London, to work with the broken people. Would you send me out? And the bishop at the front says, you are two gifted, two capable, and have two good and intellects to waste that on the poor.
You are made for the great, not for the broken. Booz turns around, tail between his legs, goes to sit down. Catherine Booth breaks all the rules. She stops there. She shouts over the front of the balcony. William, stop listening to men and start listening to God. If you're cool to the broken, if you're cool to the pool, if you're cool to the least, I am with you.
I am for you. And we go together. And he still doesn't listen. So she really breaks the rules. She comes downstairs into the men's section, grabs him by the arm, drags him out of the room, and they start the Salvation Army. That day. Friends, we have got to dream wider and bigger for what the Lord might want to do in this season.
God is after the lost. He really is. I. I mean, I will talk to a lamp post about Jesus. I'm not going. I'm that annoying one on the bus or whatever else. He tries the conversation. But here's the thing in this season, it's never been so easy to talk about Jesus. Absolutely everything else is failing everyone. God is after the lost and it's time for some of us.
We extended our prophetic imaginations for what's possible. And you might say, I'm not an evangelist. I didn't mention that word till now. You're a witness if you've got a pulse. So let's be witnesses for Jesus. We at the. I did a load of videos to help Christians share their faith. One was of a lateral burn in year nine at school.
I've got a lot in year nine at school. That means you're 13 or 14. It's just about the hardest age to be and to share your faith at school at that age. Fair play. You'll be okay for life. And it's like Ben share his faith at school. The thing is, his grandma didn't realize how passionate he was for Jesus.
I understand that too, because my 14 year old lad funds my grandparents about as interesting as going to the dump. It's just not quite happening at the moment. Loved him when he was small. Will love him again, but when my mum sort of does face time and tries to put it to her ear, he just doesn't. He just gets annoyed.
Sabine didn't talk to his grandparents that much at that point. It's just for context. And his grandma goes to church and him, the guy at the front says, we're just going to watch a short video from the eye about sharing your faith. It's her grandson. She cries a river. She sees her grandson sharing about sharing his faith in school.
Full cheers. Down from her is her friend Reg. Reg is 92. He stands up at the end of the video. He says, I want you to pray for me. I want to be more like Ben. So what do you mean? He says, I've never told anyone about my faith. I want to share my face like that. That does because you will pray for me.
They pray for him. And then, in his own words, over the next few weeks, he comes out as a Christian to his friends. He's got a lifelong friend called Tommy who never knew he was a Christian. He starts bringing Tommy to church and six months later, Reggie's holding the towel as Tommy gets baptized. Friends, one of the things I love about church is God doesn't have grandchildren.
We're all children of God, so we can all learn from each other. But one of the other things I love about church is God is always ready to extend our imaginations so that God has gone 92 years without sharing his faith, and spent his next few days being so fruitful for the Kingdom. Friends, it's time we believed wider for what God wants to do.
But secondly, we need to be bolder. We need to be bolder. It was about this time last year that the Church of England were reimagining, let's say, what they believed about marriage and other stuff, and I'm not going into depth on that. But in my role of the I just know leaders were speaking out about this publicly. So I did an open letter with a premier and with a yay!
They've got 100,000 engagements in 24 hours that basically said, let's not move. Let's stick with what Scripture says.
What I did that I got 5 to 600 personal messages of hate through social media, people praying things over my kids, people hoping I get really sick, people basically cursing me in different ways over social media. And so that night I was in my lounge feeling sorry for myself and my wife and this lovely, kind, godly, warm, compassionate, friendly and lovely to everyone but me.
I'm sorry, my lounge feeling sorry for myself. And she says, pull yourself together and stop being pathetic. She says your brothers and sisters are losing their lives for scripture on the other side of the world. And you're scared of a few secular humanists in the UK. Sort yourself out. She got up and left the room. That was it.
But you know what? She had to point. I think we do need to be bolder in this season. God is calling us to be braver. I've never known so many non-Christians be interested in faith, but I've never known so many Christians be scared of sharing faith. So, friends, unless we're going to get our confidence and boldness, we're going to miss an opportunity where there's an open goal in the culture crying out for the hope we have.
Let's not miss it because we're chickens. I really believe we're living in a time where boldness is important. When I took over leading, I, the Lord was so clear you need to be braver than you've ever been. You also need to be kinder than you've ever been. And you go out and be those two things. And we could see the UK changed.
Paul never uses his circumstances as an excuse to not live for Jesus, to not talk about Jesus, or to serve Jesus. He keeps sharing regardless. Now let's dig in a bit. That means that he's sharing on Malta in verses nine. In ten, after a shipwreck, most of us wouldn't what we would sort of selves out. There's been a shipwreck and people are saved and healed in Rome.
In Rome, in verse 17, after three days of house arrest, he calls the leaders together and shares the gospel in verse 28. He's still going for it no matter what's going on for Paul, he's still sharing about Jesus. In contrast, I wonder how easily we may give up or get angry at the fact our circumstances aren't going our way.
I love the passage in acts five when the apostles are preaching and in the temple courts the preaching in the courtyard, they get arrested. In acts five, they get put in prison, and during the night an angel of the Lord comes along, opens up the prison, lets them out and says, fellas, there's good news and bad news. The good news is you're free again.
The bad news is you'd need to go and do exactly what you got arrested for and start preaching again in the courtyard. They go preaching in the courtyard. Then the next day, because the angel also locks the door again. The next day the Sanhedrin gathered. The Sanhedrin. Is the Jewish Council properly wealthy, properly intelligent, and the top of society absolute geniuses.
You know, I grew up around geniuses. My dad's a genius and I'm one of four kids. The other three are geniuses. Genuinely true. I mean, they've got. I didn't get the brains. I got the looks right. They got the. But the geniuses I grew up around could solve any theory known to mankind, but it couldn't put a picture up straight on the wall.
No common sense, right? That's how I imagine the Sanhedrin. No common sense, but massive brains. They send a messenger to get the apostles, and the messenger comes back and they say, well, where are they? Says, I dunno where the bars broken. No. Was the door of the prison broken? No. Where have they gone? But no. And I imagine these brains the size of a solar system, steam coming out there is, as they sit in a circle trying to work it out.
So someone looks out the window and says, surprise them, they're out there. What are they doing? Preaching, friends, there's something about the spirit gulf. When it gets in your heart, there's an overflow as an overflow. And you know, too often we think people are born brave. They're not. You can ask for boldness. People aren't born brave. You given a chance to be brave.
Right now. In our culture, we're given a chance to be brave. Brave, bravest person. The Bible for me, Esther. When she goes to see the king, she risks the most radical of haircuts. She could have had a head chopped off just for turning up. We're given a chance to be brave. And you know, it might make us look silly, but we can crack on.
I saw something on Instagram. I'm pretty sure it's not true, is it? This sometimes face will make you look stupid until it starts to rain. And that was from Noah.
I think we need boldness and be prepared to look silly. But what's our boldness? Fueled by a boldness is fueled by our walk with the Lord. It's not belligerence or boldness for no reason. It's boldness fueled by walking with the Lord. When I was a teenager, I was not. Let's say the amiable gentleman stands before you today. I remember when I was young, I would pray every week that I would ruin my Sunday School teachers week.
And every week the Lord answered that prayer. I was a bit of a pain, and I remember at school, Princess Margaret was going to come along to our school to open a building. This is quite exciting, having a royal in our school in Peckham, in London, and me and the two are the least likely people were invited to the head teacher's office.
We were told you all three are going to welcome Princess Margaret to the school. We couldn't believe it. We were never given an opportunity. We were normally invited to detention, not to this and we were so excited. We even were our ties on the day it was going to happen, we were going to make such an effort. We were going to welcome royalty to the school.
What an honor. What a privilege, what a surprise. And we were told it was in the back car park, so the locals wouldn't realize that a member of the royal family was coming to the school after an hour and a half in the back car park with a teacher, I said to the teacher, When's Princess Margaret get in here?
She said, Princess Margaret has been to the school, opened the building and left again.
You were the three we considered most likely to ruin the visit. So we kept you in this car park. Do you know, I know you're laughing at my pain, which makes it doubly painful, but to be one of only three kids in a school not considered worthy of meeting a royal as an impact on you as a young person.
But you know what? Princess Margaret's gone now, and I can spend any time I like with the King of Kings. We have direct access to the living king. Tim Keller said. Only a child can wake up a king at three in the morning and asked for a glass of water. We have that access to the King of Kings.
Friends, you want to be bold. Feel your boldness by walking closely with Jesus. The time has come to dream wider. Extend your imagination for what God could do to be bolder in our day, and finally to have a fuller gospel. To have a fuller gospel. So sometimes I like to think, what does the Bible look like? I talked about this this morning a bit with Lazarus, but when we have scripture, what does it look like?
Not just what does it say? Because we read Scripture slightly, obliviously sometimes. What does it look like? You know, what does it look like when Jesus feeds the 5000 with a packed lunch that a little boy says, I don't fancy that you can give it to Jesus? The lunch was so bad that a boy that was really hungry just didn't want it.
What does it look like when Elijah comes down the hill and all he's got is a second hand coat he's given by Elijah, and then he sees the river split. What does it look like when Moses sees the sea split? Then you wish you'd been there? How soggy was the ground? What happens if there's a massive fish? Does that split as well?
You know, it's kind of. I'm quite visual. Why does lot's wife become a pillar of salt? Not a pillar of pepper. I really want to know. Or in the Gospel of John, when Jesus resurrected, you know, the first thing is he does folds up dirty washing. Jesus is buried in two sheets in the Gospel of John. The first thing he does is he folds up one of those sheets.
Mary and Joseph clearly raised him really well, but then he leaves. The second one unfolded because at some point he thinks, hang on, I'm the savior of the world. I've got more pressing things to be getting on with. In this passage, verse three, Paul is bitten by a poisonous snake and nothing happens. That's quite a big deal. Nothing happens.
He should be seriously ill from it. But instead God intervenes to show these people his power and to bring about his purposes of this. The people are open to approaching Paul. Many are healed and come to faith in Jesus. It's a critical element in God's plan to take the gospel to Roman. The ends of the earth. It makes me question what gospel are we sharing?
I've been proclaiming the gospel over the UK for 25 years. I reckon I've been asked more than a thousand times what's more important in sharing the gospel words or works? I have never been asked what's more important words or wonders? And I think sometimes we're missing some of what's available to us as Christians in our day, we've had a guy called Smith Wigglesworth.
Smith Wigglesworth was that guy that used to have had a stomachache. He'd punch you in the stomach and it would go in the name of Jesus. You know, he's the safeguarding officer's nightmare, right? But nonetheless, they said of Smith Wigglesworth that when he walked into a room, people would fall down and be convicted of this sin just because he carried the presence of God that strongly.
This isn't Jesus, this is Smith Wigglesworth, therefore, that's available to us to I think we need to realize the power that we have available to us. My father in law used to run a hotel and in the bar one day they used it as a Christian retreat center. Two It's in Barlow in North Wales and I'm in the bar.
One day they had a Christian group in, and there was a lady that it used to be a witch. My father in law was asking you when you were a witch, what did you make of Christians? She said, I knew that Christians had more power than me when I was a witch. She said when I would engage in the powers of darkness, you would see Christians because they would shine in the darkness, she said.
The reason I became a Christian in the end was on you. Jesus was more powerful than anything I'd ever encountered. A bit of a two things about Christians, she said. One is less of them than you think, and two, they never use the power available to friends. We need to know sometimes what we have in our locker if we long to see Southport one for Jesus, then we've got a message to share in three ways.
Firstly, words. There's a powerful image of Paul as a prisoner sharing the gospel unhindered in the New Testament. I always feel sorry for anyone guarding an apostle or disciple who's in prison because the apostle or disciple just think captive audience happy days and just preach the gospel the whole time. But he's still proclaiming the gospel despite the fact he's in chains.
We two, despite the many restrictions we feel have something to share. You know, I thank the Lord for reverse mission. Reverse mission is mission means being sent to the UK from all over the world. We send enough missionaries for enough years. I thank the Lord for those coming from all over the world. It's leading to an explosion in church and certainly in the southeast in particular.
And one of my friends came to the UK as a reverse missionary. He'd never been on an airplane before. He came from Uganda. He gets to Heathrow Airport, he gets his bags. He's got a decision to make. He's never made before in his life. Something to declare or nothing to declare. So he goes through something to declare.
And he says, I declare that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And by believing you'll have life to go and customs looks at him like what he says, I declare that Jesus died for you, and then let him in.
We mustn't forget friends. We have something to declare. Words are so important. But then works are important. Works are important. Two of my heroes in the history of the church in this country, William Wilberforce and Equiano, who together led the abolition of the slave trade in this nation. Equiano, a former liberated slave, and Wilberforce, who gave up so much of his ability to be involved in Parliament and other things to lead this.
And they did that because they love Jesus. Our works have got to match up to our mouths. Or a friend of mine, John Kirkby, who started and pioneered Christians Against Poverty the way he did that and he said, I don't even care that much about debt relief. I care about reaching people for Jesus. And I know that if I show a passion for debt relief and I show a passion for the gospel, the two can come together and the words and works work as one.
But then we mustn't forget wonders. I think too many of us have forgotten wonders. I was a nine year old boy at Spring Harvest and Ishmael in the Glory Company, and one of my age, or had kids my age. They went. We learned the Bible through Ishmael. You know, I pray for a few more Ishmael to emerge these days who who sing dreadfully simple songs that stay in your head as sort of earworms the rest of your life with Bible verses, Hebrews 11 verse.
Anyway, this one and I was there aged nine and they said, we're going to pray for healings, am I might? James next to me rips off his sock when nine rips off his sock. He's got a dirty Veruca. He says, I want this to go. And let's be honest for a minute on my I mean, even your own feet, a minion, let alone and someone else at the age of nine with a Veruca.
I wasn't going to touch it, but I remember praying that in the name of Jesus, something would happen to this Veruca. And in that instant, it went, oh, now, yeah, now I don't believe I've got a gift for the praying of workers. Don't see me afterwards. But as a 44 year old man, I have the faith to pray for anything because there's a nine year old I saw the Lord deliver.
It doesn't mean it happens every time. But, friends, we've got to bring this into the mainstream. I remember there was a girl at New One youth when we were new, one youth who had written with a Stanley knife the word worthless in her forearm. It was a self given tattoo. But during worship one day she cried out to the Lord to reveal her identity to her.
And as she did that, the word went. I've prayed twice for self-harm scars on a young person. They've gone in that moment. Friends, we mustn't just think that our intellectual words and the work of our hands is enough. Sometimes one does need to be there too. We need to stop doing. I will pray for you and letting people walk away.
At least let them say no. When you say can I pray for you now? My wife prayed yesterday. We were walking in our town and we walked past the local pub and the woman running the pub. You could just sense on her that that she was disturbed and struggling. And my wife went in and ministered to the woman running the pub.
She had no understanding what was going on to. The woman running the pub said I was diagnosed yesterday with stage four cancer so friends, we have got to be alert to what the Spirit's doing in our communities and step into those spaces. And let's also not it's not believe it's going to always be full proof. I help coach my lad's football team.
because he's a goalkeeper too. He's nowhere near as good as I was, but he'll get a home. And not that long ago, a few weeks ago, someone on the other team broke their leg when they were playing against us. Everyone's bringing the ambulance, and I just went over to this. Lads and his dad's in the coach and said, any chance you mind if I prayed?
And I was praying and I was like, Lord, this would be an amazing moment because the squad has got 20 of our teams, got 25 players, it's five coaches, 25 sets of parents. The only Christians are me and my son and Lord. You'd really help me out now if you could heal this, this would be amazing. This would change everything.
And I prayed and prayed and prayed and absolutely nothing happened. But you know what? Since I've had at least ten conversations with parents or coaches who've said, why was your instinct to pray when everyone else is ringing an ambulance? And I told them all my instinct was to pray, friends, we've got to discover a full of gospel words.
Works wonders. I think God's calling us to be a witnessing people in our day and acts 29 church playing our part and continuing the story, continuing what's been given to us. Let's not overestimate our part. We're standing on the shoulders of giants and will hand on to giants after us. Since Jesus was on the earth, there's been at least 200 generations of Christian leaders.
So let's not overestimate our contribution, but let's make it as fresh, as vibrant, and as amazing as it can be right here, right now. We are living in moments where it's easier to share our faith than ever before. Let's ask the Lord to view things wider than we have. Lord, give us a bigger vision for what's possible. Break our hearts.
Show us where we need to stand up and speak up and act up. Maybe some of us, like Reg, need to be commissioned to share our faith for the first time. But Lord, make us bolder, make us bolder with that boldness. Come from walking closely with you from time on our knees in your presence and with our gospel.
Be full of you. Know, I'm doing my bit about I that I've said to my board I'd stay for another decade. And when I said that last year, I had to do a plan for the next ten years. And so it's quite a clever plan. It's quite good, quite spirit inspired and quite pleased with it. But for all that, there's a lovely full page plan.
The bottom line is there's one sentence as to how I see the next decade really hold our nerve theologically. Don't compromise on what matters to the Lord and go for it wholeheartedly and sharing the gospel. I know people good at one of those, but friends, we must not compromise on truth, but we must not also miss the open goal to share our hope.
And if we do those two things, we can see something amazing. And you know what? Major moves of God never start in capital cities. Major moves of God. And I've read a lot into revivals. They never start in the places that the world would choose. They always start somewhere else. It needs to be somewhere significant enough to have a big enough reach to impact and reach a nation, but not so obvious that it's a capital I just can't think of anywhere more suitable than the North West of England for a major move of God to start, because it could start from here and flood the nation.
And wouldn't that be incredible? Because we don't want to keep it to ourselves. But it'd be lovely if it started here. And, you know, all it really takes for a major move of God is enough. People that are crazy and willing enough crazy, willing enough to say, Lord, give me a wider vision for my space, my place in my time.
Make me bolder for you and help me share more fully. When I was driving up this morning, ironically, the higher call I have today is an automatic, and I kept hearing a little target change and I was like, what? What? And I really sensed over this community that the Lord wants to give you a gear change in reaching your community for him, that the focus needs to go off what it's been on before and it's time for gear change.
The thing about gear changes, I'm not saying turn the engine on. You're moving already, but it's moving quicker. It's almost adding a pace to what you're already doing. It's time for a gear change, and I really believe that that might start for some of us. But say, Lord, let me see wider, make me bolder, and let me share more fully.
So you know what? Without any pomp and ceremony, if the Lord's on your case right now and you know, actually I need to be part of that gear change. I wanted to be more effective in my witnessing, you know, every school report I ever had part from PA said could do better, not even shoot, but just could. I wonder if you sat there, you thinking, Lord, I just want to be used more effectively in your hands.
I want to know you better. I want those bigger dreams. I want that boldness. I want the bravery to be able to say, can I pray with you now? Can I want to take Jesus onto the streets? I want the walls to come down so that we could be a church that shares without walls with the Lord's been on your cases up, been sharing and you know this is for you Steve.
I just love to pray for you and just invite us to stand. If you know God's on your case, challenging you for to be bolder, to to dream more fully. And this is not you could have been a Christian for 100 years, or you could have been a Christian for ten minutes. Because it's not about that. It's just about, Lord, in this season, I need you to raise the temperature in me might impact those around me.
And we just say, spirit of the living God, would you fall afresh on your people? We pray to which you move amongst us now we pray, Lord, we might be from different traditions of church, but we're from one family and we stand here as the family of your church in Southport. And so, Lord, in your mercy, give us this community.
Give us this community. We pray. Now, Lord, would you give us a wider vision for what you want to do? You? Why? Division sensing, even as we're saying that, that for some people, even as if you stood there, God's going to be dropping little seeds of what he wants to do differently in and through you going forward. There might be someone you've walked past that you need to stop with.
There might be a new ministry you need to put your hand to, but God wants to give us a wider vision. For some of us, we need to leave the safety of Samaria the exciting though it might be, and go to the danger the desert, because the God's got new assignments for us, and he wants us to move Jesus.
Thank you, thank you Lord. Thank you, thank you, Lord. An oppressed spirit of boldness. We are not to be fearful. We're to be bold, not brashness, but boldness. I pray for supernatural boldness. Lord, I pray that you would give us the bravery we need to stand up in our day. I pray you help us to know. Be bold enough to say, Lord, I'm so sorry that it's been about me.
It's never been about me. It's about you and what you want to do. And even where we stood. For some of us, we might need to just confess and say, Lord, I'm sorry that the focus has been on me. I want to look outwards to office. I also pray for a fuller gospel, a fuller gospel. I pray even now, Lord, even now, you'd give some of us a greater desire to share you in words, works, and wonders.
Lord, in the end, it doesn't matter which of those we think we're most gifted up, because in the end, you can use any of us in any way you want. But what you want is willing vessels. And so, Lord, we say we're willing. We say we're willing. Lord, would you use us, please, for your glory? It's never been about us.
Lord is about you. Would we see a gear change, Lord? Would we see a gear change? Lord thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. One of the things the enemy wants to do is convince us we're on our own. You're looking around. This is not a massive place. And is this many of us wanting to see great things?
How encouraging, how encouraging. But the thing is, as well as for too long, the church is always led at the front. So I just want encourage us. Maybe. Maybe just the person on your left. If you just pray blessing on that person, you don't need to know quite what they've stood up in specifically about God's blessing on that person.
We're in this together. This is not an individual thing. Prayer, anointing, and equipping some of the people around you that God would bless and anoint and use. Jesus.
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Takes stakes.
Jesus. Jesus. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. One of the great joys in my role of the I is I go to all kinds of parts of the UK church. But last Sunday I was at a Spanish speaking church. I got translated. It took a long time. And amongst a bunch of, Christians of South American heritage called to the UK, we prayed for London and they took no encouragement to cry out to God to break through in London.
And I just think I was so challenged by it to think there's power and God's people come together from a space to pray for that place. But I want to encourage us today to not be too British about this, but to cry out together for Southport and beyond, whether you've stood or not, whether you stood and now need to sit, whether you weren't going to stand.
If this is a moment for all of us to minister over our place and as we minister over our place, that's ask the Lord to break our hearts for it again. That's all I said earlier. Go deep in your postcode, be connected nationally, go deep in your postcode. Let's pray for postcodes. Let's pray for foot for communities, let's pray for shops and workplaces.
But let's cry out together that the Lord would have his way in Southport and we would see something amazing. So. So let's pray. So Jesus, I pray your right.
Jesus.
Might. You might.
Empower.
Us. With.
Us. So. Jesus himself. Jesus. Would receive. Lord, we love you. And we are so grateful to know you and your life changing grace. Start in us what we long to see in others. For some of us set us on fire again. For others of us. Lord, just pour petrol on the fire that's already there. But help us to burn for you.
I pray for our churches, Lord. I pray that our churches would be full of people who know and love you, but they would also be full of people who are soon to know you. And I pray, Lord, that we would not mind which church grows as long as your church grows. And Lord, we pray for our community, we long to see it one for you.
We long to see Southport on its knees before the risen Jesus. We long to see hope in this place from knowing you, the author of Hope. And so we pray. King Jesus, would you have your way? Would you do it in and through us? And would you've always said, Lord, you would build your church, and even the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
So we pray protection over what you want to do. We pray you would move in and through us, and we pray for some of us when we feel isolate or when we feel like things are going wrong, pray. We remember moments like this where we can look around and think, there are so many of us so passionate to see you move in power and believe once more that with you nothing is impossible.
Have your way, we pray. Amen, Amen and.