Ali Rothwell: Cloudy with a chance of meatballs
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Before I do anything else I'd like to say, for those of you that heard me speak time last time, I'm still walking with my life. Unpacked and I am having an amazing time. And I thank you for prayers. I know some people were concerned that wasn't the point. To be honest. But I'm having a great time. I'm walking a life unpacked and I'm walking with my yellow hats.
For those of you that remember going back quite a while, my goat hats, my hats that when I, got asked me to do something and I'm not quite sure I step out. Ridiculous though it might feel ridiculous. Or it might seem, when you are taught to be a teacher. I used to teach. You're taught that you should do all the explanation and all the theory before you do the outworking in the action, and I was planning to do that this morning until time, you see, almost an hour ago.
So I'm going to start explaining the action, and then we're going to look at the theory that takes you to that action. I am slightly out of breath, slightly red in the face. I'm still in my walking clothes with my walking boots on because I've been walking and you all know how much I love walking. I haven't been walking up the hill.
I've been pounding the streets of Southport because a few weeks ago now, she says, looking at David, it's not months, is it? Weeks ago, a group of us got together and we get together once a month and we just pray and we just seek God. And while we were doing that, very clearly, God started to talk to us about prayer walks or a prayer walk.
And at the time, we didn't know what that would lead to. But David alluded to it when he spoke last week, and he talked about how he went to Heart Street on a particular. Oh, it was over the weekend. We did it a different times. But David went to Heart Street. Well, he didn't tell you, I don't think.
Is that he, while he was there, met police officers, policemen, policewomen. And he spoke to them. Now I know David, we know David. He wouldn't just have spoken to them. He would have encouraged. He would have brought thankfully, he would have given them hope. His words that he spoke would have been encouraging and uplifting, wouldn't it? Because we know what David is like.
Helen went towards church town. She has connections into Church Town. It just happened on the day and time that Helen gets there. She knows some of the staff who are outside dealing with all the weapons and all the things that were outside Church town, and she spoke to some of the people there. And again, we know Helen, we know what she's like.
And she went out and she spoke to people.
Debbie, who isn't here, took somebody else with her and went to one of the church buildings where one of the funerals was due to take place and walked around around the building, praying for that building. My heart very much. And I find this quite ironic that it's now when I don't live in the middle of the town.
My heart was just to walk down the streets of Southport and just to pray. I have no idea what prayer walking is. I don't know if there's a definition. All I know is it involves walking and it involves prayer. How difficult can it be? I like walking, so I'm quite happy to go off and do that.
And then God said, okay, so let's go for now. I want you out 9:30 on a Sunday morning. And I'm like, hang on a minute. That's my one quiet, leisurely start to the day. I don't want to go and do that half down on a Sunday morning. But off I went. And in my head, I'm not sure what I was thinking in my head, but by the time I got here, because I don't walk slow, I just can't do that.
So if I walk for an hour, I cover quite a lot of ground. So I've been up and down all the main streets in a sort of twisty thing to get back here for 10:30, get back here for 10:30. I had the biggest blister on my little toe I think I've ever had, because I wasn't wearing my walking boots that I normally walk in, but I was just thinking, well, this is a one off, so it doesn't matter.
And then God said to me, well, how serious are you about this? Do you really think that this could make a difference? And I said, well, yes, I do. So God said, we'll walk in boots on out next week. And I don't know how many weeks I've been doing it now, but I've just been walking and I've been praying and I've been prophesying.
I've been deliberately. Every single person I walk past, I get eye contact and I say good morning, waiting for that time when there's going to be something else, when I'm going to be able to say something more, share something more, and I'm just going to keep going and keep faithfully walking around. And I was saying that to God this morning.
I was at a bit of a debate with God. I'm going to go and speak at church surely this morning if I'm going to go and speak at church, I don't go out on a walk. I mean, get over yourself, Ali. Go and do what God's telling you to do. Go and walk. So I start off walking and I'm trying not to think about what I'm looking to bring.
I'm trying to concentrate on what while I'm walking. And I get to a certain point and I'm thinking, like, now I need to get back to the building. I've got just enough time to get back to the building, and I'm looking at the two ways I can go. I need to go that way to get to the building, but I know I need to do a detour this way.
So I'm thinking, okay, well, if I walk really fast going that way, I'll still get back to the building. So I go off this way and there's a lady sat on a chair and, I walked past and I look at her and I say, good morning. And she goes, good morning, how are you? And normally I'd go, well, I'm fine.
And I keep walking. And I turned and I said, I'm fine. Are you doing okay? I'm trying to get beyond the halo and ask the question. And she just started to talk, and we had this really long conversation about all sorts of things. There were all sorts of overlaps in our life. But she said to me, as I was about to go, she said, just out of interest.
What are you doing walking around town dressed in walking boots and walking trousers? And I said, well, I'm actually on my way to church. And she went just like that. And I said, yes. So she, yes, she said this. So I said, yes, but I've been out because I've been walking down the streets and I've been playing well, tell me more about that.
And it just opens up this section of conversation. So I got here late. I got here out of breath. I got here bright red. I got here dressed like this. And it really doesn't matter because I was doing what God asked me to do. I was looking for the opportunity and I was speaking. When God asked me to speak.
So that came out of this group of people who get together to pray together and to ask God, what's going on. But that group came out of a different group that I go to four times a year nationally. And it's been going for about two years. And I was challenged on the second time I went to look at setting something up locally, and my immediate reaction out loud to the two men that said this verse, I can't do that, I cannot do that.
And they both just looked at me, and you know, when somebody just looks at you and you're thinking, okay, so before I went back, the next time I'd spoken to the elders, we've got a group of people together. And that's what we started to do. But if you go back before that, completely unexpected. One day I get something in my inbox on my email saying, you are being invited to this.
Kerry would like you to come and be involved with this. Kerry, for those of you who don't know, he's an apostle and I'm reading this and I'm thinking, well, it's come to the wrong email address then, hasn't it? Can't possibly be to me. And I went Mike went with me. Mike wasn't coming to the meeting, but Mike drove me down.
I'm literally sitting in the car thinking, I don't want to go to this. This is out of my comfort zone by I don't know how many miles. So, but driving down the motorway and, I'm just thinking it's just not do this. And then I'm thinking, well, it be okay because I'm going to walk into this room and it's going to be 50 or 60 people.
I can hide at the back, I can go in and I can be out of sight. And I get there and they direct me to a room which had 14 chairs in a square, and I end up sitting absolutely opposite Kerry. And I'm thinking, now I am completely it's like it's I'm not going to have to speak. There's lots of people here that, but lots to say.
I won't have to say anything. Other people were sharing. We go for a break before the break, Kerry says. When we come back, we're going to hear from all of you. So I'm thinking, that's fine. That's all of you. Sit down. Kerry looks at me and he's going to start go, go. So what I'm trying to explain is I get to the point today, talking to a lady on the streets of Southport about Jesus, sharing testimony, sharing truth, bringing encouragement, talking to somebody who the likelihood is in Northern Ireland on highly unlikely to see this lady ever again.
That started because an email came in two years ago inviting me to something, and I had to believe that that was inviting me to the right thing. And then I had to take just a step every time God said, do something else, all I have to do was take the next step, and I end up from being over here doing this to out here doing that.
And I suppose the, emphasis of this morning for me is do not discount yourself. Do not discount yourself. Take just the next step and you put the picture up for me. If you've got the picture, there's a picture somewhere out there. We go. So this is the title cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I was going to explain it, but I'm going to let it become apparent to itself.
We've sung this morning that all of God's promises are yes and amen, but we need to say yes. Malcolm came up. It's a year of increase. We have to pick the apples. It's a season for picking the apples. We sang amazing Love. I honor you in all that I do. David talked about this little thing. This little thing.
He spoke out because he saw something that affronted something in him. It's a fun to do in him because it was deep within him and he couldn't do anything else apart from speak. If you hear at the prayer and praise, Mike talked about walking past somebody when somebody was preaching on the streets and he walked past this couple and they said, yeah, God's dead.
And Mike turned around and said, no, he's not. He's very much alive. And they walked off with shocked faces because it if it's something that was deep inside of him, he had to speak.
They're going to read the whole of Deuteronomy 11. I would encourage you. This sounds a bit back to front, but I would encourage you if you haven't got the message Bible with you just to listen, because I want to put emphasis on it. And the way it's written in the words that it's written.
So love God, your God. God well, his rules and regulations obey his commandments for the rest of time. Today, it's very clear that it isn't your children who are front and center here. It isn't your children who are front and center here. I believe this morning that it's really important because I know there are some students here, but so often our focus is on the students.
So often we're paying into our too. So often we're talking about all this wonderful stuff that's going on in each hill. And that will continue to happen, because God is moving powerfully is how he will tell you very eloquently in that generation and in that place. But that doesn't discount any of us. It doesn't mean we can't see as much.
Why not more than they are seeing at Edgehill? Why not? So it's very clear that our children are not front and center here. They were not in on what God did. They didn't see the acts. They didn't experience the discipline. They didn't marvel at his greatness, the way he displayed his power in the miracle signs and deeds that he let loose in Egypt on Pharaoh, king of Egypt and all his land, the way he took care of the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots buried in them in the waters of the Red sea.
As they pursued you, God drowned them. And you, you are standing here today alive. Nor was it your children who saw how God took care of you in the wilderness up until the time you lived here, what he did to Dathan and obey him. The sons of Elijah, son of Reuben. How the earth opened its doors and swallowed them whole with their families, their tents, and everything around them, right out of the middle of Israel.
It was you, your eyes, that saw every great thing that God did. One of the things as we get older, one of the things as we've walked longer, is that we gain experience of the faithfulness of God, which doesn't discount what he learned quickly. There's no time system in the things of God. If you are passionate about God, boy, you learn things quick.
If you're not that bothered, you don't learn things at all. But as an older person, if we're walking with God, if we've been walking with faith any for time, we have experience. We have things to talk about. We have seen things happen.
And I was quite sad last Sunday because Tad got up and encouraged us to bring testimony, and two people came forward out of the whole room, including me. I didn't there were two people that came forward. Have we not got things that God's doing? Have we not got things to share? Or do we sit there and think, well, I'm too small.
It's only something little. It's not important. Selma gets up and talks about the provision of a toilet. If Selma can get up and talk about the provision of a toilet, I can't think of many things that would be seemingly less important. But to her and civil and the ladies in that house, it was such an answer to prayer.
Don't discount yourself. Don't discount what God is doing in your life. And we need to hear it because it does is good and we learn things so it's you who are in charge of keeping the entire commandment that I command you today, so that you will have the strength to invade and possess the land that you are crossing the river to make your own.
Your obedience will give you a long life on the soil that God promised to give your ancestors and their children a land flowing with milk and honey. You. We haven't got a physical river. We haven't got a physical land. But we were singing this morning about the promises of God. We have promises over this church, and if you look around you, I was I was very, very tempted.
There were about 30 more churns out the normal. I was so tempted to set this room up as though it was for a public speaking engagement. As a conference, you can fit 50 more chairs on here. And I relented because I wanted you to be comfortable. And I'm now kicking myself because I want you to be uncomfortable. But even now, if you look around at the number of empty chairs around us and don't think, oh, it's okay, that's because the students aren't here, our students wouldn't fit with the balcony yet.
So there's all this space to, well, so-and-so's on holiday. There's always going to be somebody on holiday. There's always going to be somebody who's not here for whatever reason. And God has promised us that this place is going to be bursting at the seams. It's going to be bursting at the seams. So we don't have this physical land.
And you can leave passages like this and think, well, it's irrelevant. It's not irrelevant. It's up to us to take his promises and to put them into practice, to see them fulfilled the land. You have anything to take up? Ownership isn't like Egypt, the land you left where you had to plant your own seed and water it yourselves is in effect.
It's not like in the land you left where you had to plant your own seed and water it yourselves is in a vegetable garden, but the land that you're about to cross the river and take for your own is a land of mountains and valleys. It drinks water that rains from the sky, and of that it's a land that God's yoke are personally tense.
He's the gardener. He alone keeps his eye on it all year long. We don't need to be concerned about our physical life. We need to be concerned about our physical life in the sense that we have to have enough to eat. We have to have enough to drink. We need a roof over our heads. But what more do we really need?
Beyond that? How often are we caught up with well, I really like the latest whatever. I prefer to wear clothes this. I've got a waterproof coat that is awful now because it's faded in so many different ways, as is this t shirt, because I've worn it in different weathers and the sun is bleached. It. I maybe you don't like the fact that there's somebody standing at the front in a faded t shirt.
Maybe I should have a nice top on. Maybe it doesn't matter, does it? Really doesn't matter. And you might sit there and think, well, that's a an odd thing to say, but how often in our life are we like that? I need this, I've got to have that. I want this and God just says his resources are enough.
The mountain and the valleys. They drink water that rains from the sky. From now on, if you listen obediently to the commandments that I'm commanding you today, love God, your God. Serve him with everything you have within you. He will take charge of sending the rain at the right time, both autumn and spring, so that you'll be able to harvest your grain, your grapes, your olives.
He'll make sure there's plenty of grass for your animals here. You will have plenty to eat. Very simple. Love God your God. Serve him with everything you have within you. We sang amazing love. I honor you in all that I do. We didn't sing the bit. I don't think about you all, my king. But that's who he is.
Love God your God. Serve him with everything you have within you. Be vigilant, lest you should be seduced away and end up serving and worshiping other gods and God. He walks in anger and shuts down heaven. So there's no rain and nothing that grows in the fields. And in no time at all you're starved out, not a trace of you left on the good land that God is giving you.
And we can read that and think, well, I'm not getting seduced away. I'm not serving or worshiping other gods.
Wherever our priorities. David stood up last week and was encouraging us to be at prayer and place. There were the fewest people, excluding the students. There was still the fewest people I've seen at firm face in a long time.
We're entering a season where prayer is going to be vitally important for us individually and first. As a church, God is going to be drawing us to our knees, I believe, because of what he then wants to be able to do. When you read about moves of God, people pray and God moves.
Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder. Teach them to your children. Talk about them wherever you are sitting at home or walking in the street. Talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night. Inscribe them on the doorposts and gates of your cities so you live a long time, and your children with you on the soil that God promised to give you ancestors for as long as there is sky over the earth.
Place these words on your heart. Get them deep inside you. That's why David reacted to those cards. But maybe some of us wouldn't. It's why Mike turned around and couldn't not speak to somebody who's just declared an absolute lie that God is dead, where maybe some of us wouldn't.
We need to meditate on God's word. We should be in the word individually, shouldn't we? We should be looking to understand more of him. But this is talking about talking about them, speaking them out, coming on a Sunday morning, absolutely excited and passionate about something that you've got to say. He doesn't have to be up here. It can be to the person that God lead you to in an informal, casual conversation.
But rather than keeping it, isn't the weather interesting? Now it's autumn instead to Somerville. What are you going to do next week or anything like that? What's good teaching you? You know, God showed me this this week in the word. You have no idea if that simple thing that you might discount because you don't think it's anything important.
You don't have any idea what impact that will have on the person that you're talking to. We have a body, aren't we? Together, we minister to one another. But it's time that we learn to talk. We are adults. We are not children. We should be on solid food. We should not be on milk. We need to grow up, I mean, in the politest possible way.
And I'm talking to myself as much as I am to you. But we need to grow up. We need to be vocal and we need to talk. If you diligently keep all this commandment that I command you to obey, love God your God, do what he tells you. I always think when things get repeated quite quickly, they're important.
Stick close to him. God on his part will drive out all these nations that stand in your way. He'll drive out nations much bigger and stronger than you. He'll drive things out. He'll take down the barriers. He'll break the chains. The things that we look that we're frightened about. The things that we look that we're concerned about, maybe quite legitimately.
Because naturally we look at them and think, those are really big things. God comes and says he'll drive out things that are bigger and stronger than you. For every square inch on which we place our feet side, every square inch on which you place your foot will be yours. Your borders will stretch from the wilderness to the mountains of Lebanon, from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea.
No one will be able to stand in your way. Everywhere you go, God sent fear and trembling will proceed. You, just as he promised.
I don't think it's by accident that the students aren't here. I don't think it's by accident that we have physically entered what we call autumn. I don't actually think that it's a coincidence that a lot of our leaders go away. Because what we can't do is look around and think it's all going to happen in a chill. It's all going to happen with both leaders.
When these chairs fill up, which I believe they will, and when they fill up with people who are unchurched and have no idea about God whatsoever, who do you think is going to be their friend? Who do you think is going to be their disciple? Who do you think is going to be their encourager? Who do you think is going to be the leader?
It's very easy for us to look around and think for that person over there walks dynamically with God. So that obviously a leader, whether we like it or not, we all actually lead because we all influence the people that are around us. And I want to be a godly influence to the people around me. And it doesn't mean that all of a sudden God's going to take you from not being something and stick you looking after a group of 500 people and you suddenly got to be able to pastor them, and you've got to be able to, expound the Bible to.
And you just need to start with the person that you sit next to. You just need to start with your eyes. Looking back, I think I've never seen them here before. Maybe I need to go and talk to them. And I find in my life, little by little, God takes me from somewhere where all I've actually done normally trembling and shaking, I've said yes.
And the things that happen because of that, the steps that I then end up taking step by step by step, I end up somewhere completely different. And if God had come along and said, you are going to be doing this. When I was a very, very insecure, completely nervous, literally never spoke student, I would have just sat there and laughed.
But he didn't do that. He showed me the next step and the next step. And if we ever reach a point where we feel comfortable, then the next step might be that you don't see it. Maybe you're not looking, maybe you do see it and you're trying to do everything else. But take that step. But there's always a next step.
I was going to talk about, what God's been saying. I've been fascinated. I've gone back through from July and looking at a picture of what God's been saying, and then I. So I don't need to do that. That's not my job. That's our job. That's your job.
What do we do after Sunday morning finishes? I don't mean do we go home and have a nice lunch? Do we share our lunch with each other? Which is a wonderful thing to do, isn't it? Do we get on with whatever Sunday looks like? I mean, what do we do in terms of the word that we hear? If we believe that we come together as a church family and God speaks, what do we then do with what God has spoken?
Or do we think, well, that was a nice word. Or David spoke particularly eloquently this morning, or wasn't it great when Dave bought the biking? How many of us can remember what the message was that went with the bike? Alicia balancing on the bike. I remember the bike cycling around the room. If God comes and speaks and we believe that it's God speaking, we need to do something with that, don't we?
Sometimes it's as simple as a yes. Sometimes it takes years to work it out, and we have to be willing to put the time in to leave other things aside so that we can hear what God's been saying. And it isn't just for us. Maggie came last week and she bought us a word about binoculars. You can't see it online because it was in the first half.
But she bought this word about binoculars, and I was quietly laughing to myself because I was sat listening to her and I'd been at home and I had heard God say, take your binoculars. And it was a fleeting in out. And I just thought, well, no, I got on, came here without my binoculars, stand up. I was over here somewhere.
There. That's what I was. So I'm sitting here, my keys at the front. Come on. At the front. Not that I'm bossy or anything.
Called.
Maggie's at the front and she's talking about binoculars. She didn't have them with you. I should have had them. Can you imagine? She's talking about binoculars. Why have we ever talked about binoculars here before? Can you imagine what it would be like if I could have gone? Maggie, have the binoculars for Maggie. That would have been so encouraging.
How many of us would have thought that's a coincidence? How many of us would have thought that's God's speaking? Well, Maggie's just bowl isn't a nice thought for Maggie. It's not tickling our. Yes, it's God speaking. Thank you. Yes. If I say. And we. It didn't stop there because we both go to natter jacks, which is this craft and chat thing.
It's made up of some of the ladies from here. Men, you are welcome. But it's made up from some of the ladies here. It's made up from some folk that go to different churches. We have people who are on the edges of faith who we're not quite sure where they are. And we have some outright non-Christians.
They're very upfront about the fact they do not believe. And that's when I knew I'd see Maggie, and I wanted to. I wanted to talk to Maggie face to face. So I came into natter jacks, and at some point I said to Maggie, that was really good, that word. But I had a word. I should have bought my binoculars.
Wouldn't that have been good? And somebody else was there. Karen was there, and she said to Maggie, it was a really, really good word. And then Maggie was saying, but that wasn't everything. I didn't say everything. I forgot to say. Bates was like, well, come on then, tell me what those bits are. And she talked about how we're not to be lone Rangers, how we should encourage one another, talk to one another, shouldn't be doing our own thing.
And she talked about how we all have something to encourage with each of us. Don't discount yourself. We all have something to encourage each other with. We're going to season where we need to speak, where we need to talk, where we need to be vocal. And if we spend our time when we're with each other talking about the things of God, our lives will start to change because we will be impacted to do things differently.
If I hadn't been with a group of people talking about prayer walking, I would not have gone for prayer walk. I would not have met this lady. I would not meet all these people that I'm believing God I'm going to meet. As I carry on doing that, because God is asking me to do that. And all I had to do was do it once, take the first step.
And already in this matter of weeks, I'm starting to understand why even when I went on the first week and I had no idea what a prayer was, I just went. I just knew I was going to go and walk. It's a time and a season that we need to talk.
We had naturally into autumn and we look at autumn and this makes me smile because last week we started autumn and the week before it was doom and gloom. Isn't summer awful? It's been a terrible summer. It's been the coldest summer for the last nine years. Which means that ten years ago it was worse. If you want some encouragement, if you're thinking, oh, that was a rubbish summer.
But but I've been bumping into people this week going, oh, the weather's right, isn't it? I'm thinking it hasn't changed until Friday, when it was boiling hot. We had the same weather conditions, but we had a week ago. Our perception and our expectation that altered. We're going to autumn. We're expecting cloud, we're expecting wind. We're expecting chilly stars.
We expecting short days, long nights. We're digging out the woolies. We're thinking, oh, there's going to come a time I can draw the curtains. I can cuddle up in my favorite chair. I can light the fire, get the hot chocolate. I can flick through the magazines or the internet and find the winter sun holidays that I need. Because I didn't get any sun over the summer, I can look forward to Christmas.
I can plan for next spring. Autumn is a very different season than summer and in the natural we're heading into autumn and in the natural. Take this in the right way. For many of us, we are above 22. We were above the ages that people graduate from university. If we're not there already, we're heading naturally into the autumn of our life.
I was horrified this week. I discovered I could take one of my pensions in two years because I'll be 60. I'm like, how did that even happen? I'm not doing that. I can't be that old. And I believe what God wants to tell us is that although we look at that in the natural and we look at the time that we're in, nothing really changes.
My garden hasn't particularly altered, but we're looking and we expecting the things to come. Do not be looking with God and thinking that you are slowing down just because you're getting older. We do naturally have less energy. We do naturally wake up from doing the garden and then get up the next morning and think, oh, I might have overdone that.
I can't do physically everything that I used to do. But God has such a purpose for us. And in this time of prayer, you don't need loads of physical energy. You don't need to be able to, bounce around the room. You don't even need to be able to walk. You just need to determine that you're going to pray and spend your time praying.
We've lost the sense of the pattern of seasons. In some ways. We get our food all the way through the year. My garden's in a bit of a muddle. I've got some of our spring and autumn raspberries and woven cream berries that's been in berries for way, way too long. If we look with a natural eye and we try and understand what's going on with a natural eye, we're going to miss what God wants us to be involved in.
We have an expectation of life will be light over the next few months. Among us unless we respond into God's Word, in which case literally anything could happen in his kingdom. Literally anything could happen if everybody seated in here heard the Word of God, and I'm talking to myself as much as you if we heard the Word of God.
But God speaks into our life every Sunday. When we went home and we did something about it. What would it look like? What would we look like? How different would we be if we then took that with us when we went to work, or we went to the shops, we were out doing other things. What would happen then?
Our expectation level was a vision. It could be cloudy with a chance of meatballs. I'd got this, really sensible Bible study on seasons. I was really excited. I thought, I'm gonna actually stand up and talk about I could do a Bible study on seasons. And Harry sent me a message saying I need a title. And I was trying to come up with a title, and I was coming up with Autumn outlook, weather forecast or something.
And all that kept coming into my head was that it's cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It's ridiculous. It is never going to rain. Meatballs. But what Psalm expectation of the things of God when we're looking to the future and what we're expecting God to do. Are we looking into autumn, expecting it to stay just the same as it's always stayed?
We might get 1 or 2 people coming in. There might be the evangelists amongst us, might go up and bring some friends in or something like that. We might get somebody who finds us through the streets just happens to appear. But if we're looking and we're expecting God to move in ways that we've never seen before, if we're putting our lives on the line for that, if we're changing our priorities, if we're looking in faith, if we're declaring his words, if we're lining our lives up step by step by step, I can't even begin to imagine what that could look like, what that could look like on Earth for us, each and every one of
us. Because each and every one of us are important, and we have a part, and we shouldn't discount ourselves.
We're part of a body. I know this is a bit scattergun, but we're part of a body. And when I look at a body, it moves. If you don't move, you stiffen up. I think if you don't move a while, you get it atrophy when you muscle, she says, looking anyone where your muscles start to. And then all of a sudden, if you're not careful, you can't get up and you're stuck as a body.
We're supposed to move. And we emphasize sometimes about being the part of the body and being in the right place and having the right role and the right responsibility and being, content, I suppose, with a piece of the body that we are. But this body that we are is meant to move and be mobile. And if we're meant to be moving and being mobile, this is going to show my complete uneducated idea about anatomy and how the brain works.
But I'm guessing that my brain tells through my body somehow which bits should move, and it's all coordinated. I do know that if I want to walk or my body gets involved, not just my legs, but my top half shifts and moves as well. And in the season that we're coming into, I believe that we need to be conscious that as the body together, we need to be mobile together.
And the problem is, if part of the body doesn't move, it's a bit awkward. If you have too many people trying to do one thing, you end up with a stretched arm or a stretched leg would be worse, wouldn't it? Because you'd be dragging it along as you try to move. The body would be out of sync and disjointed and not working as it should.
At my heart this morning is that for each of us, we understand how important we are and we don't discount ourselves. Because for me to see the body of Christ moving as I long to see the body of Christ moving, you need to do your part and for you. If you're looking to see the body of Christ moving in the way that you want to see the body moving, I've got to do my part.
We are intricately reliant on each other. We are covenanted together. We move as one. Does that make sense?
I've got so much more I want to say. But what I want to do is, if you have got binoculars with you, I would like you to stand up.
If you are in a household where you only have one pair of binoculars, you are allowed to stand up together.
So I I'm just laughing. So I've got all these people now looking at me through binoculars. Gavin Kovar, when he came, talked about revival. And one of the things that he said was that revival doesn't often come from a city, doesn't come from what you expect. And I come, I meant to find you and I forgot, but I can't remember his precise words.
But he was basically saying, why not? In the north west of England? Why not in a town like Southport? As Helen said, we've been on the news for all the wrong reasons. Who expected to turn on BBC at 10:00 and Southport is there. The riots that took place in Southport. I could see where I used to live. I would never in a million years expected to see that.
So why can't it be? As Helen has already said, that we see ourselves at 10:00 on the news for all the right reasons? Can we dare to believe up? Because if we dare to believe that it impacts us, it impacts you and it impacts me. And I believe if you brought your binoculars with you, that God has a word for you.
And it's a challenge, don't put them away. Put them somewhere that's going to remind you, because God's going to enable you to see things that you haven't seen yet as you spend time with him, as then you go and talk to other people, you will be able to see things that he hasn't shown you as yet, but then he's going to ask you to move.
Then he's going to ask you to do something. Then he's going to ask you to take the next step. And for some people, you already know what that step is. God has already been asking you to do something or not do something. For others of you, it's going to come as a complete surprise what he asks you to do.
So let's pray. Father, as we stand here this morning, father, I thank you that you're going to show us things that we haven't seen yet. I thank you that you're going to take us places that we never imagined. I thank you, father, that all we have to be willing to do is to take the first step. Just that first step.
And, father, I know these people, so I'm going to pray, but we are willing to do that. I've heard these people sing and declare that they are willing to do that. So as a body together, for those of us in the autumn of our life, we are not going to settle. We are not going to find the comfy chair.
We're not going to do all the curtains. We're going to press on more passionately with you and for you than we ever have before. I'm Tituss, which does not discount everybody else who's sitting down just because you haven't got your binoculars with you. But I thought that was really important. We're going to finish by breaking bread. James, if you'd like to come back up.
Thank you. Forgot about the.
Can somebody help me move this out of the way?
You don't let me just shove it out of the way! Someone.
Selfish. Isn't it?
If you think back over the last two months, two and a half months of people speaking, this should make sense to you. It's the first pressure on the pedal that gets the bike moving. The first pressure is the first step onto the lower hillside. That gets you to the top of the mountain. If you never press the pedal for the first time, the bike will never move.
And it's the hardest first, because it's the one that starts the moving. When you climb a mountain, when you get to the foothills, you've got out in the car and you can see the top. Boy, does it seem a long way away. It's the first step. That's the hardest, but it's the only way you get to the top of the mountain.
It's the first time that we utter one word about Jesus to somebody that doesn't know him. That gets us on a road to sharing our faith easily, openly, freely. Whenever, wherever. It's the first rise out, the starting blocks that gets us on a race into obedience. It's all about his lordship. It's all about what he's asking us to be and to do.
But all he is expecting, I believe this morning, is the next step. So we have bread and wine. We share this as a body, don't we? It's very personal to us, but we do it amongst people. And I'd like to do it slightly differently in that I would like you to do is to come down the middle and just take the bread.
And then I'd like you to work your way. It's a bit more awkward. Work your way round eating the bread, because we're doing it together. And it's a prophetic declaration that we want to be a people on the move together. And then we're going to come back, take the wine and do the same thing. So, okay.
The song that we're going to sing is you My Heart. Holy spirit, come. And while we're doing it, I would just ask that you just allow God to highlight whatever he wants to highlight.
This part of me that is terrified about what we might see if we all live like this, terrified in the sense of what on earth is God going to ask me to do? Does he not realize I always did live on my edge of my comfort zone? Way too much for my liking. Where on earth is he going to push me out to next?
What's he going to ask me to do? What's he going to expect me to do? That's part that terrifies me, but way beyond that. Way, way, way beyond that is my excitement about what it could look like, what that could look like on earth if we lived like that. And that's who he's calling us to be. That's what he's calling us to be, just as we are each and every individual in here, just as we are.
Father, I thank you that you have given us as a body of promises. And we sang this morning about all your promises, and we said yes and amen. And, father, we know that as we look at those promises, they don't happen without us. But we have a part to play. So for me, father, I come this morning as much as I look, and much as I'm.
Apprehensive about what that mean. You are my lord. You have every right to ask anything of me. And I'm so grateful that you are such a kind and generous God, because you are never going to ask me to do something that you are not going to enable me to do. So I just thank you, father, that in my life, though, exciting times ahead.
I'm going to be amazed where you take me. I'm going to be amazed by what I see. And, father, I thank you that we don't travel on this alone. Father, I thank you that we are built into families that operate and work together. Thank you father. That as ridiculous as cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs sounds. If that's what you wanted to do, you could do that.
But I thank you that your purposes are so far beyond that. I thank you that you will. We will see the whole earth filled with the glorious and knowledge of God. I thank you for that. And as for me, I want to play my part. I want to take the step. I want to see where you're leading me to.
