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In this podcast, we share our sermons and teaching from our Sunday Celebrations + some other additional teaching content.
I'm going to read in one Samuel chapter 23. One Samuel, chapter 23.
I can see four people searching in the Bible. Then I'm going to be in the first chapter of John's gospel, just one verse. And I'm asking you a question.
What is the link? What is the connection between these two scriptures that I read? One John. Sorry. One, One Samuel, chapter 23, verse 15, and John's gospel, chapter one. Can you spot the connection? And being a teacher, I might just pick on somebody and ask you the answer.
Which?
Ones have you tried to treat? Verse 15. While David was at harsh in the desert. He learned that Saul had come out to take his life. And Saul son Jonathan went to David. And harsh and helped him to find strength in God. Don't be afraid, you said my father, Saul will not play a hand on you. You shall be king of Israel.
Jonathan went to his friend David and said to him, don't be afraid, my father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You shall be king over Israel. Now look with me in John's gospel, chapter one.
And verse 42.
John one verse 42. Then Andrew brought Simon, his brother, to Jesus, who looked at him and said, you are Simon, the son of John. You will be called Cifas, which read and translated is Peter.
You are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called CFS, which when translated means Peter or the Rock. Okay, what's the connection? Volunteer.
Both prophetic statements.
Jeff is righteous, always. You shall be king. You will be Peter. Sift the rock you are, but you will be. Think of a rock. Strength, steadiness, solidity, stability, reliability, permanence, rock.
And Jesus looked at this man called Simon. I mean, he looked at him, didn't glance at him.
Those eyes of Jesus. Deep pools of love singing to look right through you. And Simon, which is unstable as water. Simon was impulsive. Simon was impetuous. Simon engaged his tongue before he engaged brain. Simon was unpredictability personified. If you took a lighted match and lit the blue touch paper of a firework without knowing what the firework was, that was what Simon was like.
You didn't know what to expect. He had a totally misguided sense of self confidence. Can't speak for this lot. But I'm your man. I will die with you if necessary. I will never deny you. And Jesus looked at this capricious, changeable man.
And you saw a champion. You are, but you will be. He said it all to all of us. He chose this man out of every human being in the human race at that time. And you said, this man.
Will lead my charge, that I need you behind me when I go back to heaven to bring in my kingdom. That's the God we deal with. You wouldn't give him much of a shout for the other ten members of the team.
They don't run from Jesus. Ratchet on Jesus, terrified out of their wits we had two weeks ago. The religious leaders, all these 11 people, uneducated, untrained, unexceptionable ordinary count for little.
But God chose them to be the human foundation of the church, folks. Well, we have to do it. We have to take the Bible injunction and say this I will not despise the day of small beginnings. Do not despise the day of small beginnings.
Everything in nature, by and large, starts small. That mammoth oak tree. It starts with an acorn. Every human being alive, apart from Adam and Eve, started as a cell and an embryo, and born about 7 pounds, give or take everyone. The longest journey ever undertaken started with a single step. The highest building ever built. Started with a single brick or a single concrete block.
Every man of God, every woman of God, every work of God that impacted this world started insignificant and said, we do not despise the day of small beginnings. This church started small 12 adult Jeff and Pam, David and Brad and Rayna Allen and Maureen Stoddard, Ryan and Conway, Maggie here, Helen Whitehead, Jordan and Julia, 12 adult to not children.
They met every Sunday midweek in the front room of Maureen Sutton's house in Grange Road.
We didn't let anybody join us for six months. 1 or 2 wanted to. We didn't invite anybody to join us.
With hindsight, that was God's wisdom because you can put a notice in the South visitor at five newcomers at the next Sunday, and they'd be three of them having five different just in the previous two years. Foundation. Very important. We had to know what we believed and where we were going.
And we gave ourselves a name, Southport Community Church. And somebody said to me, that's arrogance. A little house church, you call yourself Southport Community Church. But we were and we were going to be. We were already a community. We are a community. We belong to each other. We travel life's journey together. We committed to one another. We are a community.
We've seen that today and we began to impact the community around us.
So do not despise the day of small beginnings. There's a man we read about in the Old Testament. He was young. That's the first thing he said about himself. I'm only a child and I'm not good at talking and communicating. And God looked at that man. He said, you're going to be my mouthpiece. You're going to be a prophet.
You're going to be a prophet to the nation, to you. By your word. You're going to build up and break down. Nathan, name of Jeremiah. We wouldn't have thought he amounted to much. We met him first time.
Another young man you know about victim mentality. Hiding away. His land was either invaded or occupied by the enemy or both. What did he have to say about himself? Well, I'm. I'm the. I belong to the smallest clan in the tribe of Manasseh and and I'm the least important person in my family.
And God saw a mighty military leader in that man. And Gideon became what God saw. And God made him to be. Do not despise you are, but you will be. Another man didn't have a very auspicious background. He came from the smallest tribe in Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, and the smallest clan in that tribe. God chose him to be the first king of Israel and give him credit.
Saul started well, even though he finished badly. You know I'm going next to. He had seven older brothers. He lacked that size. He lacked the strength. He lacked the stature. The youngest of eight. The menial job. Look after the sheep, Samuel said. Get your family together, Jesse. I want to meet them. I didn't even invite the lad. Why?
Because he was insignificant. He didn't matter.
But God saw the heart of that teenage boy called David. I knew there was a man who was going to write himself into human history, and every generation that followed him would take inspiration from the story of his life. You are, but you will be how God sees us. You say you're just talking about young people. Well, the next one was 18.
And he felt as a young man the call of God, the purpose of God for his life. Somehow the hand of God was on his life, and he took his first step to accomplish what he thought was the purpose of God. And it blew up in his face. So what did he become? He became a fugitive, running for his life from justice.
He marked himself down. Failure, failure, failure. If he could look in the mirror to see. No need for had yourself written failure. And for 40 years he felt he was a failure. Looking after somebody else. His son, fatherless sheep and the back waste of a wilderness. But then God called him out to the margins. God called people out of the margins.
God called him out of the wings and put him center stage under the light. He did that with Nelson Mandela 25 years ago.
But when he commissioned the man, what did he say? Oh, but I'm flowing speech. I can't I'm not eloquent. I can't do it. You've got the wrong man. The sense nobody else. Stephen, before they stoned him to death, gave those people a potted history of his country, Israel. And this is what he said about that man. Moses was skilled in all the wisdom of Egypt, and he was powerful in speech and in action.
He was.
And then he became. Lord God made him to be. God wants us to be able to discern, to spot.
Potential in other people.
He wants us to learn to look at people. And like you looked at a man called his real and started to cry. Elijah did because he saw something of the future. That man which lay ahead. God wants us to spot, discern potential in other people, and then with our faith and with our prayer and with our encouragement, help that potential to be realized.
Does that make sense? Every teacher worth it. Wait. We'll see. Potential in his or her children. Have pupils.
And yearn to see that potential fulfilled and get great pleasure and satisfaction. What it is I'm talking about the gifted. I'm talking about the nonacademic. The children not be told they're only competing against one person in the class, and that is themselves. Doesn't matter where they end up on the list. She was young. She was an 800 meter rider.
She was British. She got into the final of her event, lives and achievement. She looked comfortable in the first lap, but halfway through the second, the other put their foot on the accelerator and she had nothing left. She gave it a best. She came eighth out of eight and when the camera after for thinking out the rightness, you see that girl and she beaming, why she'd beaten a personal best.
She'd never run a faster 800m in a life. She is fulfilling her potential. Every good teacher and every teacher. Sad when people have potential, not realized. It could be that young man he ended up he you no currency. Five O-levels. He struggled for me. Worked hard you that put a longing to sleep. Dream of people brighter than himself.
English language, mathematics and three others. Maybe French was one of them. That opened many doors. What a satisfaction to see that. But and another one get straight. Take a lot of satisfaction to see that. But how sad when potentially if don't realize. Academic. Athletic. Musical. Artistic. Drama. Spiritual potential. Never realized. There's a sadness in that. But it doesn't have to be.
We have wonderful would be teachers at Edgehill University. Like to talk to them. Kathy in ten. Kathy. She's going to train to be a teacher in September. Watch out pupil as she comes.
And I say to them, might say to you, can you look back on your life? And there's one teacher you'll remember for the rest of your life, and you'll be grateful for that teacher, primary or secondary, anybody in the room? Why? I'll tell you why you mattered to them. They had time for you. They gave time for you.
They believed in you. They helped you to believe in yourself. They encouraged you. They brought the best out of you. They helped you to realize your potential. Parents see the potential in your children. I don't mean to say they have to be gentle ones. I don't care what age they are. Potentially, if God gets a hold of them.
Wow. And a word of warning your first child by temperament is not fully compliant. Love to say yes and love to plays. And you think you've practiced parenthood, don't you? And the second child by nature and temperament, if naturally I have to look at somebody is naturally defiant.
And then naturally define her first. Her first word is no. And every meal is a battlefield. But God can get Ahold of all that strength of character, all that determination, all that stubbornness, all that stubbornness, all that be mindedness. And he can turn to Saul of Tarsus and through an apostle Paul, if he has the opportunity to do so.
Let's remember in my physical state, we've got doctors in here, so I'm going to be careful what I say. One of the most important parts of my being is my immune system. If that is healthy, I can probably stay healthy that physically, but emotionally, mentally, psychologically, spiritually and socially. And the most important factor in our being is our self image.
self respect. That's vital. And we can be there to help others build up their self respect. That that makes sense. By our encouragement, by believing in and. By God seeing that potential, hopefully fulfilled.
There's a ministry for every person in the Church of Jesus Christ across this world. I don't care how young they are in age or faith, or how old they are. There are two ministries open for every one of us. One is the Ministry of Listening. That's another subject. The second is a ministry of encouragement that's open for all of that.
All of us. All of us can develop the habit, the habit of speaking words of affirmation, speaking words of appreciation, speaking words of commendation, speaking words of congratulation. Well done. Thank you. That was good. That really helped me. We can all do it as a habit of life, a new way of life. We can affirm other people. Do we understand that we create the climate in which other people will blossom?
That's in our marriage. That's in our children, that's in our workplace. That's it, not church group. How can we create that climate? By our encouragement, by our affirmation, by our appreciation. I won't say it all again. You understand that we make other people, depending on how we think of them and how we speak to them, and they will become that.
We have huge power. You don't have to be a teacher. You don't have to be a public speaker for that. It's a ministry open for us. How did Jonathan help David? Well, first of all, he did what he went to him. Do you know when you're on your own, you're in isolation. It very easy to just miscue your perception of things.
You can get it wrong. But if somebody else is there to help you, we need each other. Not to change each other's circumstances, but other people can help us to see them in divine perspective, see long term, beyond the trial. Jesus. For the joy that was set before him, he kept his eye on that. He endured the cross, despising the shame.
He encouraged David to strengthen himself. How? By remembering the Word of God and the promise of God. That's what David needed. You will be King of Israel. That's what God has promised. So he grasped the promise and gave. That's how he encouraged him. You know, David, at one stage of his life, he was hunted like a partridge to the country.
He never forgot that look in his eye, opaque, insane, filled with jealousy, hatred, consumed by jealousy. Tried to cure him to the wall with a javelin. He he never took that picture out of those eyes away from him. And now he's hunted throughout the country like a partridge. Saul is obsessed with this one obsession to wipe this young man off the face of the earth.
A David running for his life, hiding, dodging. Saul had the whole is the whole state. All the asset, all the people, the whole of the army could help him to fulfill this commission. This obsession. And plenty of people would have grasped happily on David and the King. Favorite. And this is what. David said, hear my words. I shall surely perish one day at the hand of King Saul.
My number was up. My days are numbered. He's going to kill me. Was that the truth or a lie? He was believing a lie. Where did that lie come from? The father of lies. The deceiver. The arch discouraged. You know who discourages us? That a fellow loves the antidote to discouragement, encouragement. He brought him encouragement. I'd love it to be said of everybody in this place today.
Isaiah chapter 50, verse four. Don't look for it. Isaiah 50, verse four, God has given me an instructed tongue to know how to encourage the weary with the word. How about that? God has given me a lot of weary people out there. God has given me an instructed time to know how to encourage the weary with the word of Word in season, and now word.
That's a ministry which is open for every single one of them. And if we can somehow manage to convey in a life a sense of destiny. That's a wonderful gift to give somebody. We won't know the detail, but we might sense. And then they will say to them, you've got a sense of destiny over your life, and you need to see every situation through the transcendent lens of that destiny, because it's helping you to prepare you for that which God has got prepared for you.
Then to look at people. There's a gentleman in this auditorium just at this moment, and I've looked at him in past days.
And I believe Daniel. That there will be thousands of people. I didn't say hundreds.
Who will thank God through time and eternity they got ever brought them across the path directly or indirectly, of your life?
See how high the stakes are? You tremble when you say so much to win or lose. So much will be contested. When a man knows that truth of his life, he's not easily distracted. Down by past matter. He wants to fulfill that destiny for my sake, or hurt his sake and everybody else's sake.
And then he finished. We need to learn to see and sense and foresee the destiny in one another. But we also need to be able to see or sense the destiny and the potential in ourselves.
All of us, if God has his way, will be so much more than we are now. Can you believe that you are God? If God has his way, you will be. And you got to want to be that person more than anything in the world.
All of us.
We still got the water just washing over our feet and on ankles and the call of the deep. There's so much more. We're all in the foothills and the wood has climbed higher to higher ground. Or it doesn't matter. We've had this today. It doesn't matter about our background. It doesn't matter about our shortcomings. It doesn't matter about our limitations.
It doesn't matter about on the station, about it doesn't matter about our failures. God said, you are, but you will be. You've got to want it. You've heard me say on that screen, if God put a picture of that screen on each of our lives in, say, 10 or 15 years time, with the anointing of God upon your life flowing through your life, bringing the light and love of God to the channel of God and to many people's life.
You see that person? You say, that could never be me. God will say, that will be you, but you got to want it or not. That will be here. And Gene, you and me, we will be leaving this lot to it. Okay? Okay. And in 10 or 15 years. Yeah. There will be a splendor that we could not begin to imagine.
We're going to say, like the Queen of Sheba, the Hoff has never told us we're going to be in glory. I'm telling you, we're going to be able to gaze into his face. And as we look upon him, we're going to be like him. Okay? So we're happy to leave this large chariot. Okay. But for most of this lot ten of.
Yeah, you Mr.. Right now you're probably be with us. Okay? Not.
Bad for the rest in 15 years.
Just see how high the stakes are. Thanks. What God will do with us if we let him just hunger after him, yearn for his best, and remember the bridge which will take us to that fulfilling of our potential. The catalyst which will make it happen is the ministry of encouragement. Amen.