The Community Church: Sermons and teaching

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The story is told about Arnold Palmer, the great golfer of the 50s and 60s who was invited by the king of Saudi Arabia to travel across, to play golf with the king for a week. With his family. Private jet would be sent for him. And you would be, of course, gifted for the for the for the trip.

And he gave it some thought and eventually said, yes, okay, I'll, I'll come across and I'll play golf with you. He was a great hero, I think, of the king of Saudi Arabia, played golf with him for a week. They had a wonderful time together and at the end of the week having his special meal together. And, he said, I would like to give you a, a particular gift just for you, just to thank you for this amazing week that we've just had together.

And he said, no, no, no, there's no need. Then he said no and says, please let me give you a gift. And he said, what would you like? He said, well, you know, I've always sort of loved golf clubs and perhaps you could just buy me a really nice, special golf club. And the king of Saudi Arabia said, leave it with me.

And that was the end of it. A couple of days later, he travels back with his family to the UK, and he waits for this, gift to arrive. I think took a bit of a delay, so weeks went by, but eventually, one morning he went out, picked up the post, and among the post was this package which had the Saudi Arabia seal stamped to it, took it inside and opened it.

I think this is a strange glow. And he opened it and he took it out and and it was the deeds of a 300 acre golf golf club that the Saudi Arabian king had bought for him.

The purpose of the story, the purpose to tell you the story, is just when you deal with the King, you're dealing on a whole different dimension than what you're dealing with everybody else. When you deal with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, I want you to know you're dealing in a whole new dimension for anything you could have ever imagined before, anything you could ever imagine before.

You're dealing with a creator of the heavens and the earth, and he operates in a different dimension than anybody else operates. If you have a Bible, turn to the book of Ephesians. If you don't, we'll hang up when you go home and get one. Or maybe it'll appear above me. Don't just rely on his appearing above me.

It's always good for you to open your Bible and to check out what I'm saying, so that you know that what I'm saying is true. Ephesians chapter 314, verse five. For Chuck to chapter three, verse 14. And the apostle Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus, and he says these words, I kneel before the father, for whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

That, by the way, includes you. I kneel before the father, from whom he's whole family in heaven and earth derives its name. And I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being. He's talking to you right now. He's praying for you right now. This is a prayer inspired by the Spirit of God.

I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, through faith. And I pray that you be rooted and established in love may have power. There's that word again, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and how long and how high.

How deep is the love of Christ? How, how, how, how, Lord, how high. Resisting the little song didn't need deep. And why deeper? How long, how high? We gotta try and grasp. How wide, how long, how high, how deep is this love of Christ? It is so phenomenal. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge, to know something that passes knowledge, it seems almost like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it?

To be able to know that which surpasses knowing. How can we know something that's beyond knowing? Well, there's two different Greek words in play here. One of them is an experiential knowledge, and the other one is about facts of information. There's two different Greek words at play here. And God says, I do not want your faith in your understanding of the spiritual things, just to be limited to factual information on head brain knowledge.

But I want you to go beyond that to a revelation of what God truly is like. You don't see a logical cemetery's seminaries.

Freudian slip. Maybe not theological college. You. They're filled with professors who could tell you about the Greek and the Hebrew and the other me. They can tell you all kinds of facts and fictions and information, but they have no revelation of God, no, no to knowledge of him with the knowledge that surpasses knowledge.

God wants you to have knowledge of him that surpasses knowledge. He's not right. I need you to say yes, Jeff. To me sometime. I didn't know right. Thank you so much. See, God does not want us to operate out of the limitations of our own human understanding of natural knowledge. Because as soon as we start doing that, we put a lid on what God can and will do through us.

If we only live out of our natural understanding, it will negate the faith. Because if you can know something and you've got it in fact in front of you, you don't need faith. Faith is necessary for that which, you. It's for that which surpasses knowledge. Because I say that right then I think so it's not right. And you know, without faith it is impossible to please God.

Is all we ever do is live in the realm of what I can understand. With my natural mind. We're not going to be people who live pleasing God. God wants us to live beyond that, to a dimension, beyond human knowledge. Yeah, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, things we we've not decided with our natural minds, with our natural ability.

It. It occurs to me, as I'm saying this, that if it was based upon natural ability, I would never be able to stand up here if it was based upon, university training and, and and that kind of stuff, most of us could end up discounting ourselves if it was dependent upon how many GCSEs I've got, how many O-levels I've got, how many degrees I've got.

I couldn't do this. I am devoid of such things. I have a swimming certificate.

I think I nearly drowned getting that for my boys. Born again in Miami was a marvelously altered in my deeds. I've been divinely delivered. And my back is. I'm baptized in the spirit continuously. And those are the things that make a difference. If we want to live our lives out of the human ability of human knowledge, human capabilities, we're screwed.

Can you say that in church?

If you call, can you edit the tapes? But. But we're not here to live in the dimension of what I can sort out with my natural brain, my natural mind. Paul goes on to say in this scripture, To grasp how wide, how long, and how deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with to the measure of all the fullness of God?

Isn't that fantastic? I can't get my head around what that means, but I could be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. God's measure here is a measure beyond human measure. Paul is praying that we are to be filled with God beyond ourselves, beyond human limitations, beyond human understanding, but in a dimension beyond that which comes by faith and believing that what God says about us is true.

God is not primarily interested in us coming into the fullness of who we are, but into the fullness of who he is in character, in love and in holiness, and in the dimensions of God. And if we only live the Christian life out of our natural minds, we will constantly limit what God wants to do in us. And so he was.

If we only live the Christian life out of our natural minds, we will constantly limit what God wants to do it unto us. If we only live the Christian life out of our natural minds, we will constantly limit what God wants to do in us and through us. Excuse me repeating you, but he's so important that we get in order to be a success in the Christian life, you're going to be out of your mind.

Don't put yourself down. However you arrived.

We can't live this life just out of our natural minds, but to a dimension beyond our natural minds. And then this scripture goes on to tell us verse 20.

He's able. To do eight measurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. I got stuck on this verse this week. I'm stuck on this verse that God is able not what Abel is doing. Am I? In Greek it means the same as power. God has the power to do immeasurably more than we all measure and more than we can.

I've done it all. God is able to do it together. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask, than all we have. Yes. So he doesn't. Sorry about that. He's able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, he's able to do immeasurably more, immeasurably.

I get I can't get my head around immeasurably. Because most things in my life I can measure. I have a tape. I have a number of times in my man cave, got big walls. Then I've got a 60ft wall, somewhat huge long surveyor's tape. I've got a lot. I, I, I, I can't imagine something this beyond measure.

But we were thinking about God earlier about he reigns above it all over the universe. When we start thinking about the universe and we start talking about measurement, we we can put away our 12 inch ruler, because that's not going to be an awful lot of good. Measuring the universe. The universe is quite big.

It's 93 million miles. This is some. Center of, our solar system. 90. It takes the light eight minutes to get from the sun to you and me. In fact, the sun might have gone out five minutes ago. We don't know yet. And, you know, check you want. Yeah. The planet Neptune. The planet Neptune is four and a half.

4.3 billion miles away. 4.3 billion miles away. It takes the light from Neptune four hours to get here. But. And we think that's big. It. Wow. Hung those big. No, that's my Newton in comparison to the size of God's universe. Who he reigns over.

We are part of the Milky Way galaxy. And the interesting. How many chocolate balls are involved in science? Like the galaxy Milky Way, Mars of all in that somewhere? Our Milky Way galaxy has 400 million stars in it. It would take you the speed of light. We not getting into the speed of light tape measures of God.

We're now measuring things in the speed of light. How? The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. That's seven and a half times around the world. In one second. Bleed your heart out. Easyjet. You know.

670 million miles an hour. Yeah. And if you went at 670 million miles an hour, it would take you 200,000 years to cross the Milky Way galaxy. That's just our galaxy. That's quite big, isn't it? He's quite the, nearest galaxy neighbor is a galaxy called Andromeda. That is 2.5 million light years away. 2.5 million light years at 670 million miles an hour.

That's big. The physicists for the physicists now tell us that they record in the part of the universe that we can look at and measure. There is something like 2 trillion galaxies, 2 trillion galaxies, each the size of the Milky Way, of more or less the size of the Milky Way. Can you get your hand? Well, not know.

You know why? Because it's immeasurable. It's immeasurable. And with our finite little brains, it is impossible to be able to us to even consider that kind of thing. Immeasurably bigger than we can comprehend. In the Bible, he says, the God who created the universe, who spoke that universe into being, who holds it in the palm of his hand, who sustains all things by the power of his word.

This God says he is able. He has the power to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. According to his power. That is working in you. According to his. According to his power working in us. Joy, I'm going to note in my little notes here. Notes. I'm going to note. You have notes. Yeah, but my note is a pause here for rapturous applause and shouts of Hallelujah!

Pause longer than now.

His immeasurable power is at work in does. His immeasurable power is working in us, in you and in me. I think this is fantastic. It's the same power. It's not a different power. It's not a lesser power. It's the same power that spoke the universe into being the same God of creation who created this thing, which is beyond anything we can imagine this same God his power is at work in, you know, the different power, the same power that parted the Red sea.

It's the same power that did miracles in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. It's the same power, the healed, the sick. It's the same power to raise the dead. It's the same power that calls the early church to explode. It's the same power. And he's at work in you. If we truly believe this, I'm trying to get my head around it.

But if I truly believe that my is.

That is amazing. That is truly amazing. The same power. It's not a different power. It's not a lesser power. It's not undiluted power. It's not God's power. Light.

But it's the same world impacting, nation changing, miracle working power of the Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth. He's willing to express his power according to his power working in you, according to his power working. And just somebody to say, wow. So excuse me. Wow. I mean, this is amazing, isn't it? But this is not through a natural mind.

Not so, not just, you know, a thought. It just occurred to me that I'm still here. Well, you didn't, but it does. Holly was talking last week out of Deuteronomy chapter 11. And she didn't mention this verse. I she read through it, but it just struck me. It was talking about how, back in the old world were they came out of Egypt when they wanted to water the ground.

They had to do it by foot. So it says Deuteronomy 11, a symbol of the sin, that sometimes they move these verses. But I think he's in that Deuteronomy. He says they watered it by foot. And what that was was in order to irrigate the ground, they built a little treadmill type thing, and they had to stand there pumping away and working away, you know, to keep this water flowing.

Ha na, this is hard. But you keep pumping away and pumping away and pumping away, he says. But God said, I'm going to take you to a land, and it's going to be different because he's going to be rain from heaven. The water is the ground. A God says, I don't want you to keep having to try to make it by your own self pumping away.

But I want you to rain upon you and through you by power. My immeasurable power by me manifest through you in your life.

God wants to do in me and in you immeasurably, super abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. Knowledge according to the power of the works in heaven. But according to the power that's working in you. Doesn't that sound amazing? It is because he's amazing. This is a power of God in us. And even though God in His sovereignty can't cool things to happen for you, he always wants to work with you.

And through you according to that power working in you. I hope I've got that across. You see, the power of God is in you, but he wants to get out of you. He doesn't want to be contained within you, like a vessel wall. But he wants to flow out of you like a river. He wants to flow out of you like he's my favorite little song.

You know, I always go back to his favorite little song. He's my favorite song of all time. You know the song I'm going to talk about? There's a river of life flowing out of me. Makes a blame to walk in the blind. To see open prisons, doors, sets of captives free. There's a river of life flowing out through me.

Shall I want to sing that song? You know why? Because I want that to be my confession. When I sing that song, I am preaching to myself. That's why worship on a Sunday morning, by the way, is so important. Because when we sing, we are preaching to ourselves about the goodness and the power of God. And it does something to is you don't need a sermon, just sing the songs and believe them and go home.

No, no, not no. But if we sang the songs and believed them, we could sing those songs and go home. It's not just a little ditty. To sing to God is something that is happening in us. And as I sing my little song about the rivers of life flowing through me, I'm singing to myself. I'm preaching to myself.

I'm confessing to myself and declaring the truth that God is in me and he's flowing out through me.

And it's that is my confession. If that's my confession, then I will live with the expectation of divine encounters with God and being used by God, because I'm believing his power is at work in me.

If I don't believe it, if I don't confess those things, then I will just live out of my natural mind. I will just live out of my natural thinking. I will live out of my natural understanding. And that will never work in the Christian life. Because to be with God, you got to be out of your mind.

He's big, he's big, he's big. Mark 1617 says these signs will follow them that believe signs and wonders. These signs will follow them that believe, who believe what these signs will follow them. The believe what? That Jesus is alive. No.

They're going to church on a Sunday is a good thing to do. Know these signs will follow them. Believe that these signs will follow them because they believe that these signs will follow them.

That think. Does anybody agree with that? You know what I'm saying to you? You don't believe that these signs will follow you, that they don't sing to us. You can love Jesus till the cows come home. Love me. You can live of Jesus. But if you don't believe that these signs will follow you, then you'll have no expectation that these signs will follow you and nothing will happen is according to the power working through us.

If you believe these signs will follow, you, you'll find that these signs will follow you. Yeah. Thank you. Pam, I wonder today if you dare to believe that the immeasurable superabundant power of God is at work. You pause. Why? You ask yourself the question, do I believe that? Do I believe that the immeasurable, super abundant power God is at work in myself?

I wonder, do I dare to believe that God is true and the devil is a liar when he says, I can't do something that he said I could do?

He. And even as I say this, you know, there are those who say, well, I believe it for him, and I believe it for him, and I believe it for her. But, you know, not not me. I'm just weak. I'm not strong. I'm not. I'm not able. I'm not powerful in your mind even now. Well, you know why?

Because you're living out of your natural mind and not the mindset that agrees with God. Because God says something different and either you or him is wrong. And my money's on God.

Oh, I'm just weak. Consider this you and you alone are the only person on earth who can stop or restrict the power of God flowing through you. You are the only person who alive, who can stop God's river of life flowing out through you. You determine, not God. You determine. Oh well, Jeff, you know you don't understand my circumstances.

You don't understand my situation. You know it's okay for you, Jeff, but for me, you don't understand my circumstances. You know, your circumstances are the very God that God has planted you in to grow and to be fruitful. I want to say that again. Your circumstances are the very garden in which God has planted you to grow and to be fruitful in.

The trials, the tribulations and the difficulties and the storms of life up space of the very thing that God has allowed to strengthen you, to cause your roots to go deeper in him. So that's his immeasurable power. He's super abundant. Power might be displayed in your life. I know for you and me, the greatest times of growth in our life have been times when we've had problems and difficulty and hardship and things happening in our life that we didn't particularly like.

But those are the very things that cause us to grow the most. Anybody else know that, those are the things that cause us to pull our roots? You know, I used this expression. I will try and clean it up a bit, but when the fertilizer hits the fan.

When the manure comes and they dump it on you, the manure is the very thing that will fertilize the ground. The yolk growing in the farmer does it all the time. These big wagons full of it, spreading it on the field. I'll sometimes feel like there's somebody spreading here on my fields.

You know what I'm talking about. You. But that's the very thing that will fertilize the ground to enable me to grow and develop in him. We have the testimonies this morning from Keith and from Debbie. From. Hello about the difficulties, the problems, the circumstances of life. But how God told them, still in the midst of all that, and they grew in him because of it.

The Bible says, we know. Say the word we know. We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been according called according to his purpose. We know don't we? Well know. Then when he comes, say this I know, I know that God is working something out in my life. See what's in my life right now.

And when he says, we know this knowing he's not book knowing human logic knowing it's knowing that passes natural understanding. That's the kind of knowing we're talking about. God. God's power is not restricted by your circumstance, nor is God's power restricted by your personality type.

Well, you know, I'm I'm the quiet type. I'm not the type to get too excited about things. I, I'm just a quiet. I'm. That's fine. Some people are all right now. I don't quite got the job.

There's all kinds of personality types. The church is made up of all. Look around you right now. Just have a quick look around. Look at. Look at the people in this room. Come on. Yeah, exactly. Weird, isn't it?

Hello, Jennifer. The church has always been made up of people with different kind of personality type. She's nothing new. We're not all the same. We're all different. Praise God will different. It'd be terrible if you all the same. Unless. Unless you all like me, of course. But apart from the. It would be terrible if you all is the age, the the the disciples of Jesus from all different.

Matthew was humble. Peter was impulsive. John was passionate. Philip was inquisitive. James was fanatical. Thomas was a pessimist. The list goes on. There were all different personality types, but God did amazing things to every one of them. Despite the personalities. Peter, just look at the elders in this church full of them now. Full of Dave and Harry and Mike and make.

I think some of them are strange. Sometimes.

The old friends. Thank you very much. And they think the same as me. Well, all different, different personalities. Your personality type does not dictate the power of God working through you. He'll work through different people in different way and different manifestations of his spirit. But he's going to work through everybody the immeasurable superabundant power of God working according to you, permitting him to work in your life.

Wouldn't you just love to be one of those people who see those things take place? You know, all it takes is one little step of faith.

For the dam to be breached and the flow of God's river to come through you.

The Bible says God has not given any of us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. In other words, you can do it. Your personality type does not limit you in any kind of ways. One of the greatest tragedies, I believe. One of the greatest tragedies of life is to see potential die untapped.

One of the greatest tragedies is to see potential die untapped. Cemeteries are full of books never written, songs never performed, works of art, never created powerful testimonies, never shared visual scenes, never invested into eternal causes, which is Covid to the grave, life changing achievements, never attempted. Folks we will never see increase if we limit ourselves to what our natural minds will dictate to us.

We will never see the increase that God wants. If we want to operate out of that level, we have to operate on a whole higher level than that to allow the power of God to work through us. I wonder if we dare to believe today that the immeasurable, super abundant power of God is at work in us. I wonder if you dare to believe that for yourself today.

Because all we need to do is to take one step, as it were, out of the boat to launch out into the deep waters, to start walking on the water. Because I believe that's what we were made for. When God saved us.

That's what we were made for is in me. You see, when I became a Christian, he put something in me. It's his spirit and it changes me and it's changed. There's an old farmyard. Divisive. There's an old farmyard. And on the old farmyard, there's all kinds of different animals. And one of the animals is this old broody chicken.

A booty chicken and a chicken. Stop saying he just sits on any exit. It can find. And he finds this old, old British chicken he's putting around in the farm. And he finds a duck egg that had been either lost or abandoned by by its mum. And so the old booty hen sits on the duck egg and he's outside for a long time, but eventually there's a cracking noise and the little duckling is born.

So yellow, fluffy duckling and the little yellow fluffy duckling looks at this bird and says, mommy and other and the broody and goes, baby! And so they spend time wandering around the farmyard, pecking up the dirt on the ground here. And the as. Chickens do.

Day after day.

But there's something in this, little ducklings says I was not made for this, I was not I was not created for this. There's something lacking here. I don't know what it is, but mum looked after him and he loved his mum. Mum loved it. But one day he went to a different part of the farmyard. Did not been to before.

And in this other part of the formula there was a duck pond. And the little duckling sees, even smells the water and he goes, quack, quack! Quack, quack. Mum says cluck, cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck quack quack quack quack quack quack quack cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck. And he starts running towards the pond mumbling cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck, going quack quack quack quack quack.

He gets the one in the water and he's away sailing on the water. Ducking into the water. Mum's running around going glug glug, glug, glug glug. And he's going quack, quack, quack I was built for this.

I was made for this. And you were not made to scratch around in a farmyard like an old broody hen. But you were created to launch out in the waters of God. To allow God to do something magnificent in you. That's where you were made for the living God is inside of you. That's what you were made for.

If you're a believer here today, I want to tell you you were made for the. You are not made to scratch around in some farmyard. You are made to live not in the limitations of your own abilities, but in the rain that falls from heaven. The power of His spirit operate to you, flowing through you. The immeasurable superabundant power of God wants to work through you.

And this week, this week, there will be moments for each one of us to step out in faith. There will be moments to go beyond what your natural mind will say. There will be moments when your natural mind says no, but something inside of you says, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. Your natural mind will be going, cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck.

Depends who you're going to listen to. You're going to decide this week whether you are a.

Or a clock. Am I a clicker? Oh. Of series. We laugh. I always want to make people smile because. You know, when you smile, your ear is apparently a more open, truth creeps up and grabs you by your heart. I want you to smile, but I want you to understand the seriousness of what I'm saying. This week, you will determine whether you have a clicker or a cracker.

I've decided to be crackers.

It's your choice. The immeasurable superabundant power of God as it flows through you.

According to his power. That's a work in you. Amen.