Sunday 27th February
“We were born to swim. Our minds they reach, they stretch, beyond the nexus.”
God wants people to be on fire, like him, so they can be the light of the world. We’ll never be able to shine as bright as the son, but through God we are lit & it’s him who makes us flammable.
As we get to know God we go deeper into his character, actions, plans and his passions, for the world, for justice, love & suffering – for people.
Seek and you will find.
Out of all of our questions, we have one answer that is the most fascinating – Jesus.
This is how the message began this Sunday, and if this means something to you, we ask you to go deeper into exploring more about God. Open your heart to him and you’ll find you can explore his message deeper than ever.
In today’s service we had Andy as our guest speaker, the CEO and principal of All Nations Christian College. The message he brought us was from Luke, Chapter 6.
On our journey to go deeper with God, we often find ourselves distracted. Andy discusses his own distractions – some good, some not so good. Andy’s ‘not so good’ distraction was paralysis. He finds himself in positions where he feels he can’t move, can’t think, and can’t act.
Distractions and paralysis are something we all as Christians can relate to, and Andy believes the word in Luke can help us with those two struggles.
So, what is the purpose of the Gospel of Luke?
There is one key purpose in the Gospel of Luke, and you can find this in Luke 19:10.
“For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost”
It’s a Gospel where we see Jesus welcome outsiders in, where we’re reminded the challenge is to respond to the message, and it shows us that it’s the people excluded from society who are most likely to respond.
This Gospel is for everyone, for you reading this right now, for the Queen of England, for your family, friends, neighbours. The message is for us all to follow Jesus, who is the great friend of sinners.
For those of you who may be new in your faith, we’re made to believe Jesus despises sinners, but this is not true. In the Gospel of Luke, you can see Jesus befriend sinners, and walk side-by-side with them, for he forgives you for all your sins once you come to him.
Andy discusses the important themes of Luke, one of which is redeeming history. It’s all about completing the story.
Luke 6:31
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Our role as Christians is to respect others, look for the good and serve others. This is known as the ‘Golden rule’.
A third, is Gods heart is for the poor.
The message is to us, and to the church. We can sometimes get ahead of ourselves and want more. More money. More things. More influence. But the point of this messages is to put God first before everything. Before ourselves.
It’s the humble who’ll be exalted.
It’s our job as Christians to pray – and pray a lot. Andy talks about the current war in Ukraine, and how we should pray every day for them, and not just whilst it’s trending in the news.
We are called to pray and should continue to pray for all of the issues in the world, whether they’re on or off the headlines. It’s easy to forget an issue once the media moves on, so don’t be hard on yourself. But today, decide to make it your mission to pray about people across the world fleeing wars, fighting poverty, even if you know little about the situations. Pray for peace.
As we continue to move through Luke Chapter 6, we discuss the danger of money.
There are 5 stories within Luke’s Gospel about people who love money more than they love God. They didn’t set out this way, but it’s how they ended up. Money can be a very seductive element in our lives, and with money can come power.
We must understand the gracious wealth of Jesus Christ more than we understand the wealth of pounds, dollars and other earthly currencies.
Although Jesus was rich, for our sake he became poor, so that by our poverty we can become rich. Now this doesn’t mean money, Jesus has taken on our sin and our debts for eternal life with The Father.
We hope this message has touched you today, there is lots of the service we haven’t recapped, so check it out today here.