Ali Rothwell: How real is your life?
I want to start by reminding you of two things that you've either sung or heard or agreed with this morning already. You are all I am living for. I want my life to face you. Yeah. They took us through that, didn't we? Make sure we knew what we were singing. You are all I'm living for. I want my life to face you.
And then. Well, he gave us all we need. And we said yes. When he gave us all we need. Oh, we can say yes. And as ever, when I come to stand here, it's so encouraging. When the stuff that happens before I get to stand here feeds into what I'm saying when I get here, it's quite a big relief.
I'm continuing on the theme of the holiness of God in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Harry. A few weeks ago I was talking about the temple in the Old Testament, and then he was explaining how that relates to us today in that we're the Temple of the Holy Spirit and looking at it and encouraging us to actually start to understand what that means.
I mean, it's massive, isn't it? But we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. He then spoke about the holiness of God or the implications of that for our life. If we start to understand how Holy God really is. And then David, last week was talking about hearing and all the different ways that we can hear. And this is wonderful for me because I don't have to now explain any of that.
I can refer to it, and I'm going the next step, I suppose. I'm looking at an outworking one aspect, but if we can see God as holy and if we can understand who the Holy Spirit is and what that means, what we can actually do is obey. I am talking to you this morning about obedience because we know only when we can hear God.
We not only have a reason to obey because we understand who He is and who's doing the asking. We have everything that we need in order to obey. God is never going to ask us to do something without giving us everything that we need to obey. So what is obedience? It comes from two separate words. One is to hear and the other is beneath.
I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce the Greek, but it literally means it's the submission to what is heard. Obedience is the response to someone speaking in relation to both heavenly and earthly anointing and authority. The response to someone speaking in relation to heavenly and earthly anointing and authority. It is compliance. It's the obedience of one. Listen to this.
Who conforms his contact to God's commands? Absolutely no pressure. Conforming his conduct to God's command? Absolutely. It is attentively listening and fully responding. And the word obey we talk about and we say it's not very popular in today's culture. I don't think obedience has ever been popular. If you look back in the Old Testament and you look at individuals and groups of people and whole nations and over and over and over again, they disobey.
God says, do this. And they go no and go the other way. They don't want to be told what to do. They don't want somebody coming in and having authority. They want to choose and go the way that they want to go. And 35 years ago this year, Mike and I got married. And I can still remember the shock some of my family and friends when I chose to stand up and say that I was going to obey Mike.
They were horrified. How can you do that as an educated woman in today's society? How can you stand up and say that you're going to obey? I can stand up and say I'm going to obey because I know who Mike was. I know who he is. I knew the God that he served. I know my scripture relating to that.
And that is what I believe was the scripture and the right thing to do. And I have never for one second regretted it at all. It's not a popular word. It's not a popular thing to do. And post COVID, there's been so much even now about wellbeing and our own being. Okay. And once I got myself sorted out, once I know that I'm okay, then I'll go and do the next thing.
As Christians, we challenge the Lordship of Jesus only as much as it is important that we're in a good place, much as it's important. But we are doing well as an individual. Our first priority is to hear from him and to do what he says no matter what. That's what we are called to do. We have given our life to Jesus.
If He is Lord of our life, the first priority is always to him. No matter what. So what we call to obey. I've got loads of scriptures. I haven't even attempted to click them through. So apologies. You'll have to listen again. But Matthew four, verse four says, Jesus answered, Man shall not live on bread alone. That's on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Every word. Every word. It's not a new concept because Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy eight, verse three, to teach you that man does not live on threat alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. And at the start of that chapter, it says, Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today. Every every.
And the implication of that is that God's word is as essential to our existence as food. It's as essential to our existence as food. The first step is simply to hear Is it difficult to obey when you don't know what you're supposed to be obeying? And David, unpack that for us. Last week he talked about all the different ways that we can hear from God, whether it's through Scripture, whether it's dream, whether it's prophecy, whether it's somebody else, whether it's vision, whatever way he chooses to speak.
As we heard this morning, he's a creative god. He has limitless ways of speaking to us and communicating with us. But we have to be somewhere that we can hear. We have to give him the opportunity to speak and be willing to listen. But also we have to learn to recognize his voice. And I'm making no apology for bringing back in the words from Jan that God gave us very clearly.
He said, Spend time with me. You need to know my voice. And if you seek me, you will find me. You need to know my voice. And then once we hear the next vital step is we protect what we hear. We don't doubt it. We don't discount it. We don't just get on with life and forget about it.
But we protect it. And quite often people will say, But how do I know it's God? What if I'm having something? And actually that's not God, And it's simply if we are fine to follow the way God wants us to do, if we are full of His spirit and being sensitive to his spirit, if our priority is him, the huge likelihood of the voice that you're hearing from whatever form it comes in is God is far more likely to be that the not.
So my challenge this morning is that we learn to set that as a default reaction rather than immediately thinking maybe it's not God, why don't we challenge ourselves to think that's God and accept that it's not speaking to us? And in January, again, we had the words here and trust the one who speaks the awesome God, the constant one here.
And first John ten, verse 27 says, My sheep, listen to my voice. I know them. They follow me. Simple as that. They listen to my voice. I know them. They follow me, The ones we hear. Once we believe it, then produces faith. Romans ten verse 17 Faith comes from having the message and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
So we have is we believe it's faith starts to rise because of what we've heard. And that is so important because the next step is obedience. We then have to act on what we've heard and what has caused faith to rise. And it's to whatever we have heard. It might require an action, it might require a change in the thought process.
It might cut across our priorities. It might seem very, very big. It might seem very, very small. But whatever the word is, and not just the ones that we like, not just the ones that we want to hear every word. Romans 16, verse 26, says, So that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes to be faith, obedience that comes through faith.
ROMANS 616 to 17, don't you know? But when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God. But though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.
You have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. And again, in January, God said He's looking for people who will say yes and who will do as I say. I have work for you to do, and I know the plans. And the amazing thing is that as well as it leading to righteousness, as it says in Romans, it also brings glory to God.
When we are obedient, it's the his namesake. ROMANS One verse five says, The call for the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his namesake to Corinthians 913 because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the Gospel of Christ. So it's hearing, believing, faith rising, doing what ever glorifying God?
Yes. How simple is that? How straightforward is that? What could possibly go wrong with this scenario? We just do that. We live out this vibrant, dynamic, exciting, satisfying, fulfilling life with him. Or is it that easy? What can go wrong and what are the consequences is it's important to know to start with that God just God doesn't just wants us to obey.
He expects us to obey. When we hear something, we know it's him and he's telling us to do something. This isn't up for discussion. This is We should do it. One Samuel 1522 says What is more pleasing to the Lord, your parents of friends and sacrifices or your obedience? Listen, obedience is better than sacrifice. Submission is better than offering the fattest lambs.
And I know now that we don't have to do physical sacrifices, but I know for me, at times, if God is challenging me and asking me to do something, I can be thinking, Well, I'm getting everything else, okay? I'm doing this, Suvi, and I'm sorting that's out. And I almost feel like God sitting there going, Yes, but this this is wonderful and fine, But this this is what I want you to sort out.
This is what I want you to do. So what happens? You love this. This is my wonderful artwork. This is my little man.
So this is us. Obviously. Who, by dynamic, colorful, satisfying, wonderful life. Okay, so my little man here is hearing is creating faith. He's then obeying. And it's for Jesus, his namesake. Yeah. So what happens if we hear it produces faith and then we don't do anything? What is the consequence of that? However big the word is, however small the word is, it's every word.
Just notice if we don't obey, we lose this bit. Yeah. It's not just that we don't obey. This bit goes to you and you might think, Well, that's okay. I'm still slightly brightly colored on a bit gloomy down here, but I'm, you know, I, I still got a bit of a dynamic life. James 214 to 26 And I'm going to read the whole section and I'm reading it out of the message because I wanted it to be maybe in words we haven't heard before, and this is quite blunt.
Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words, but never do anything just merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it. For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in black and half starved and say, Good morning friends, pick clothing, fight fires, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and then you walk off without providing as much as a coat or a cup of soup.
Where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God talk without God acts is outrageous Nonsense. I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying That sounds good. You take care of the faith department. I will handle the works department. Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith.
Apart from my works. Faith and works. Works and faith. They fit together hand in glove. Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That's just great. Demons do that. But what good does it do them? Use your head. Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works into and not end up with a corpse on your hand?
Wasn't our ancestor Abraham made right with gods by work? When he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn't it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners? That faith expresses itself in Works That the works are works of faith, the full meaning of believe in the Scripture sentence. Abraham believed God and was set right with God includes his action.
It's that ways of believing and acting, the ways of believing and acting. But God, Abraham name God's friend, Is it not evident that a person is made right with God? Not by bad faith, but by faith. Beautiful in words. So faith without deeds is dead. Guess what? Not doing quite so well now. And you might think. No, no, no.
I'm still okay. I'm still having. I can't think of much that is more dangerous than hearing and doing nothing When you remember who God is, this Holy God that we've been learning about this mighty magnificent, majestic work beyond description, God that we're hearing about when he speaks and we do nothing about it, is a very, very dangerous place to be.
And we can fool ourselves that we're doing okay, but we're doing everything okay. Might be that we give no opportunities to hear from God. It might be that we don't really want to hear. Maybe we have an idea where the next do this might be. Maybe we know we're doing something wrong. Maybe we give it no protection when it comes into our life.
But those of you that have Facebook and saw the picture that Harry put up for me as part of the introduction for today, when you first look at it, there's a massive shadow of three people. When you really look at it, there's these tiny, colorful people. And the danger if we're here is that we start to see ourselves.
And what we're actually looking at is the shadow. We're not living this full dynamic life. We are fooling ourselves that we're living like that. But if I can flip this so step by step, we go from bright, vibrant, dynamic, satisfying to a shadow. A shadow. And the question is then, how real is our life? How real in relation to that?
All that God is showing us, all He's calling us to be, all he's asking us to do? How real is our life? Because the reality is in here, isn't it? The reality of how he wants to live is in here. This is how he wants us to live? Or are we living a shadow of the reality of the Christian walk that God intended us to walk?
Are we just walking in the shadow? And the bottom line is that obedience isn't optional. If we are Christians, obedience is not optional. Jesus is Lord or Jesus is Lord. Obedience is an optional one. Peter one verse two says, The gods elect who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Christ Jesus, and sprinkled with his blood light at the start of a letter, pieces laying out the foundations, and one of the foundations is being obedient to Jesus Christ to such an extent that when you get to verse 14 as obedient children.
Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. It's just assumed that we are obedient children because we're obedient children. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. And the great thing about it is when we are obedient, it's always for all good. We heard this morning he works everything for good. Isaiah one verse 19 If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land.
It's how God has planned and testing the way that we live our lives, that we're obedience. Another word that came in January was about unfamiliar, unseen, unknown and surprises. But it will be a year where we would walk into things that we didn't expect. Maybe that surprise us that they are unknown and we have no idea what a small step of obedience can lead to.
We might look and think it's a tiny, tiny, tiny step. Does it really, really matter if I obey? And yet if you obey, it opens up and you have all of this. And if you don't, that isn't accessible. Tiny step of obedience can open up all of this. It can thwart things if we're not obedient. And then the question comes, who's in whose eyes is it small?
You might look at it, I might look at it and think, That's a tiny thing and God's looking at it. And it's almost like a stopper on top of a bottle. And if you pull the stopper out, everything can float down. He sees it as so important, so big. We see is so small. And who are we to judge the relevance?
We don't know what's coming next. God knows what's coming next. And again, that small step of obedience can open up your life. I know I have this came into our house in the New Year, and if you can see it like a wooden wobbly thing, it came in and it was covered in heavy plastic and it had this amazing display of fruit on the top dried fruit.
I love dried fruit, so I was a very happy person when this came in and we ate all the dried fruit. And I don't know if you end up with a pile after Christmas and New Year, things you maybe want to keep, but you can't quite work out what to do with it or where to put it. So this was on the side and every now and again I would go up to anything.
I have no idea what that is. I don't know what to do with that. And eventually I took the plastic off thinking, Well, it must all stick together. And it's just a chopping board. It didn't all stick together. It's definitely not a chopping board. Put it back down again. I still don't know what this is, but I love what I'm thinking.
I could put it in the fire, Couldn't I burn it? That seems like a real shame that I wonder what it is. I'm not kidding. This went on for weeks, probably months. One day I picked it up, I turned it over, and on the other side of it it's got the maker's name. And I thought, Aha, Google. So I googled Bosnian Pop and this is the best seller.
Would you believe it? This is their best seller, this company. Because all you do is twist it, hold it right. Look at that. It's amazing, isn't it? I was so chuffed to having and James bought it. And then I texted James going, I'm in the kitchen going, Wow. I had no idea. It's amazing. And you can put fruit in it.
You can put pinecones in it, you can fill it with chocolate, you can put whatever you want into it. But until I knew how to use it, it was not of any use. It was beyond it was useless. And I believe that for some of us this morning, God is saying, you know, that there is stuff in your life that I have bought into your life this year and it is unknown, it's unseen.
It's a surprise to you and you're looking at it and you're thinking, I have no idea what to do with that. And God is simply saying, Ask, ask me. And there's a simple key to make it of use. Yeah, but it comes with a warning because while it's like this and you haven't asked it pretty safe, if you ask God what you're supposed to be doing with whatever it is in your life and he shows you what to do, you then need to act and it will become something of use in your life.
Maybe if you sing other people's lives, I don't know. But it's such a small step, isn't it? So make it work and become functional. And so often for us in our obedience is such a small step that makes our life so much more fruitful. And you might say, Well, Ali, it's not really disobedience. It's not really disobedience, because I'm not sure that it's him.
Get your mind in the default setting. Ask him. Ask other people, ask for confirmation. It's not disobedience. I just can't do that. I just can't do that. And I believe this is really important. And I believe God wants to come and say, you are wrong, you are wrong. God never asks us to do something that we can't do.
You've got to, as we've heard this morning, get yourself in line with God. Understand who he says that we are as well as who he says he is and do what he's asking us to do. Take it captive, refuse to believe it. It is not true. It is never true. It's not disobedience, Ali. It's not hurting anybody. It's not hurting anyone else.
It's not hurting me. It's not disobedience. How do you know who is hurting? How do you know what is thwarting in your life? If God asks us to do something, it's every word. But he's asking us to react to. It's not disobedience, Ali. It's simply too much. It is just too much. I have been there so many times and the thing that you have to do is get on your knees in the throne room of God and worship him and spend time in his presence.
And I don't understand how it works for all your priorities and all the pressures and all the things that you're carrying. We adjust and we calibrate and get back into the right balance. And suddenly this stuff that is simply too much is no longer simply too much. So you might be sitting there thinking, Well, Ali's obviously got this completely sussed.
You know, we have a meeting of the people that are coming who speak on a Sunday and the elders come and they say, this is the topic, and then we all get together and we unpick possibly what we might be feeling God's asking us to talk about. And I went along to this meeting about holiness and the person is the Holy Spirit and I haven't got a clue, I haven't got anything.
And as we were talking, I was sitting there thinking, it's the outworking we need to do outworking as well. Part of it is obedience. And you know, in committees, when you open your mouth and suggest something, all of a sudden it's your name and your initials against the thing. It wasn't like that. It was not like that. However, I am standing here talking on obedience, and I got in the car to go home and I just went, Oh, no, because I know before I stand here I have got to learn about what I am going to speak about, and I'm thinking, what on earth is God going to ask me to do?
Okay, little did I know I was partway through this journey already, so bear with me in October last year, I was invited to a meeting and I knew that there was only me going from here. I'm already out of my comfort zone. I want to go with somebody that I know. I want to know what I'm going to do, where I'm going.
Mike very graciously drove me round down. I think he thought I'd be shivering back in the car to try things. I don't think I'm going to be fine. He's going to be fine. They're going to be 50 people or 60 people. Carey is going to be way over there somewhere. It's going to be absolutely fine. No problem whatsoever.
Gets Cardiff walk into this room first tables and chairs like this, the 14 people and Carey sitting at the front. I'm thinking I just do not want to be here. What am I doing here? Why me? I'm looking at the other people in the room thinking, Why me? They sent the out one person. Oh, my doing here. And partway through the session, which was the day Carey said, I am looking to send some people from here into Cuba in April.
So I'm hearing this. This is all apostle, I'm hearing this and everything in me. It was a physical reaction. Everything in me went yes, yes. A nanosecond later. He's not talking to you, Ali. He's talking to everybody else in this room. You don't do foreign travel. You haven't had a passport for well over a decade. You don't like hot weather.
You can't speak Spanish, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I didn't squash this. I obliterated it completely. I got to November with our new World Watch and they're talking about all these different countries and what God's doing and we get back in the car. Mike said, Oh, I need to get a passport and I said, Well, that's really interesting because I need to get a passport.
Where are you going? Mike said, I would like to go to Cuba. Nothing. No response in me at all. I had squashed this so completely. Nothing like this. Where do you want to go? I think I'll go to Belarus. I'd like to go. It's about Greece. Not that you can go to bed at the moment, but I have completely obliterated it.
But we knew we needed passports. So of course, the first thing we do when we get back to South Pole, go and get the phones, get the photograph, send it off, sort out the passport. Not exactly. So December, we eventually get the passport forms. January we end up somewhere where there's a photo booth and we get the photos.
February, an email comes in. Dear Ali. No, dear people who were there or anything like that. Dear Ali, I'm just emailing to remind you that you were invited to go to Cuba. And what was your response? And at that point it just was in exactly the same way as they had the first time. So of course, in great faith I instantly reply, No.
I go to Mike and say, Oh, I'm wondering whether I mean, it's just ridiculous, isn't it? Looking back and wondering whether I should be doing this by myself, would you just send the email saying that you believe you should be going in if they come back and say, Not this time, that's fine, isn't it? I'm like, Yeah, that's fine.
So send us this email literally hours later. That is absolutely fantastic. We're so thrilled you can join the team. This is wonderful little letter etiquette fees, blah, blah, blah. Can we have your passport number? Well, how can I go? I haven't got a passport. So I go back and say, might be a minor delay. I haven't got a passport, so I can't actually travel.
And of course you can go and get an emergency passport and a quick passport. But for Cuba, when you meet the Home Office guidelines, you have to have three months in advance as well as three months at the end of February, March, April. How on earth is this going to work? And to cause a long story short, after that, we did have to go and get quick passports.
They charge an arm and a leg. If we had done it at the right time, it would have been a fraction of the cost. It was a hassle. We had to sort it all out. And at the end of the day, I didn't go in April, I'm going in October and I'm going with Mike and I'm going with Miriam, which just makes my heart sing because it's wonderful.
But you might look and say, But that wasn't disobedient, Sally. You didn't turn around to garden. Say No. Yeah, I did. I disbelieved his word over and over again. He gave me so many opportunities to do what he was asking me to do. And over and over again I did not turn round to go out and say no, I just didn't do anything.
I didn't respond to his word in my eyes. If I'm honest, that is disobedience. I am not doing every word that he's telling me to do and I don't want to end up like this. I'd much rather be honest with myself and know where I've got to go and what I've messed up and get away from this and get back to being that vibrant, dynamic person figure.
That's what I want to be. I think obedience and disobedience is actually quite black and white. I don't think there's a lot of gray. You either do it or you don't. So the bit for me, I don't know for you that makes me uncomfortable isn't the hearing. I love that isn't the voice of faith. I love that. It's one I've actually got to do something about it.
That's the bit that is challenging. But I believe that we are heading into days where more and more we are going to come under challenge. As children of God. There will be more and more challenge and it will be more and more uncomfortable. And at the moment, the challenge comes almost sideways. Something happens and society starts on transgender or gay marriage or things that are contrary to the word of God.
And it almost sort of comes in sideways, if you know. What I mean, is that it's not a direct challenge, but I think you'll find that in times to come, it will be direct and it is vital that we don't just hear, but we do and we speak. And the best thing to do is to almost practice. Now, before that happens, it's time to prepare.
It's time to be very real with God, really push out to have this vibrant, dynamic life because the danger is if you're living a shadow life and the darkness comes, what can you not then see? The shadow just goes. Whereas if you've this vibrant, dynamic life, as the darkness comes, it will just shine brighter and brighter. And how do we do it?
Diana will be when she came. Just say yes. Just say yes. Exodus 2437 says they responded, We will do everything. Everything that the Lord has said we will obey. The second question is who is doing the empowering? Who do you believe is really doing the empowering? And the third question is do we want a vibrant, dynamic Christian walk, or are we content to live as a shadow of all we were intended to be?
And if you're sitting here this morning and you have never asked Jesus into your life if you've never made that commitment, your life can change from being a shadow to being vibrant and dynamic so easily. So do you talk to somebody? But if your answer to the first question who is doing the asking isn't just but it's God.
But it is God who is wholly a magnificent, a mighty powerful. And beyond everything I can think and imagine, that's who's doing the asking. And if you're thinking about who's doing the empowering and you're not just saying, well, it's the Holy Spirit, but it's the Holy Spirit who brings in everything that I need, every resource, every talent, every gift, whatever I need to do, whatever I'm being asked to do.
And if you are looking to live a vibrant, dynamic Christian walk and you've answered yes to the first two, can I ask you to stand up, please?
So God is this amazing, awesome God, the Holy Spirit bringing everything that we need into our lives. A five foot dynamic walk? Well, I believe it's really important to do first is just to stop and check and ask God. Each of us individually. Is there anything maybe God's asked us to do something a long time ago. Maybe God asked us to do something in this spot, squashed and obliterated.
Just stop and just ask the Holy Spirit just to bring into remembrance. If there's anything like that. Father, I believe that we stand here today as a body of your people, as your family, and we want to obey. We're looking for obey every word, every command, however big. However small, however seemingly insignificant or significant, however difficult, however easy.
But no matter what the cost. We're standing here this morning, God, as people who want to obey a father. I just ask that as you show us anything over the days and weeks ahead, go by that father. We will learn to be a people who recognize your voice and step. How is exactly as you ask us to. I thank you that you are a gracious, forgiving, loving father.
But Father, when we see you as that holy, magnificent God, we don't have a choice but to obey our father. I just ask that you show us that clearly in the days ahead, Father, that when you challenge, we will rise to that challenge. When you ask of us, we respond in the way that you've asked, Father, that we will learn to walk in real obedience to you every word, every command, and that we live out this vibrant die make life.
Thank you, God.
