Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Chroma Church Podcast.
[00:00:06] Well, here we are, first Sunday of the new year.
[00:00:11] What is important to God?
[00:00:14] I think the three things that jump out at me as I. As I read the Scriptures is that the first thing that's important to him is we gather around his presence, that we love Him.
[00:00:27] The second thing is that people find Jesus. The reason Jesus came was so that people could know God.
[00:00:36] And then number three, that we would love one another, that we would express something of the nature of God as we live with each other. His love would overflow out of our lives into the lives of other people. So if you've got a Bible, find Luke's Gospel. And we're going to go to Luke chapter 15.
[00:01:01] Why don't you stand and we'll read a few verses. Luke, chapter 15, verse 1.
[00:01:09] Then all of the tax collectors and sinners drew near to him to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, this man received sinners and eats with them. So he spoke this parable to them, saying, what man of you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say to you that likewise, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. That's what happens here every Sunday. Heaven going crazy. You may think you're going crazy when we welcome in people who give their lives to Jesus, but in heaven there is a party, Jesus goes on, or what woman having 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it. And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I lost. Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. This is the heart of the Lord. Amen. Take a seat.
[00:02:48] So every year I have a thing, something that I believe the Holy Spirit is speaking to us as a church that he wants us to push into. I know the last few years we've done presence, salvation, healing, and this year, I think it's family.
[00:03:10] I think it's, how do we do big things Last week, Tim was speaking about unexpected growth. One of the things the Lord has spoken to us is unexpected growth. He's about to move. He's going to bring lots of people into his kingdom. And if that's the case, how do we do big family? You see, we see this in nature. Healthy things grow, growing things change.
[00:03:38] But change means a challenge. And so unexpected growth will result in a challenge of how we do big family together. You see, whenever God moves, we see growth. We see it Moses and the Israelites. Moses is trying to meet all the needs of the people. And Jethro, his father in law, comes in and says, moses, you can't do this. You've got to appoint people to take care of the people. When you deal with some of the more difficult cases, Jesus says something similar. He says the kingdom of God is like mustard seed. It starts really small, but then it grows and grows and grows to the largest of trees so that the birds of the air can dwell in its branches.
[00:04:26] So we must be careful we don't cut the tree down, otherwise we will lose the branches. And you know what? Sometimes there's something in church culture that doesn't like large. But I've got news for you, God does.
[00:04:42] God loves large gatherings. He loves small gatherings where two or three are gathered there, am I right? In the midst. But he loves it when his people gather to worship him because he knows that in the larger gatherings the branches reach out and the birds of the air can come and dwell there and find rest. You know, as we've been looking at Acts, it's exactly the Same Acts, Chapter 6. The Greek speaking widows aren't getting fed, so the apostles appoint the seven. And two of them are Stephen and Philip. Why? To accommodate for growth. You see, health brings growth, which means we have to change, which is always a challenge.
[00:05:32] And then from the Antioch Church, we've been following the story of Paul and Barnabas.
[00:05:38] But as that church grows and as God starts to move there, there is so much to do, there is strain on relationships that even Paul and Barnabas divide. And Barnabas takes John Mark with him and Paul takes Silas.
[00:05:53] And then we see later Paul is joined by Timothy, Apollos and a number of others. And we haven't finished Acts yet, so we'll tell some of those stories. But the thing I love about the Book of Acts is the church in Antioch. The church in Antioch is a home church. So no matter what's happening with all of them going to all these different places and preaching the gospel and miracles, they come back to Antioch.
[00:06:21] And Antioch is a sending home church. And if you were to ask me what would be my prayer for us as a church here? That we would be a church like Antioch, where people go and do all of the things they do, like we've just seen on the video. But they can always come back because this is home.
[00:06:42] This is a safe, healing place.
[00:06:46] So. Yeah. So there are two types of families, okay? There are big ones and little ones. Okay? And you don't choose your family. You are born into it or you marry into it. And if you marry into it, it's your own fault. And like it or not, you are now in a larger family that's getting bigger by the week.
[00:07:17] So what does a large family look like? Well, first it's really busy. There's always something going on. And the frustrating thing about a large family is you often hear about things after the fact.
[00:07:30] Okay? So that can be really annoying. Oh, I wish I'd known that was happening, but I didn't know. Probably because you weren't listening, but you were just busy doing stuff. Someone even came up to me and they said, what time was New Year's Eve? And they were talking about the prayer thing. They knew when New Year's Eve finished. And I said, oh, it's 9:30. He says, I showed up at 7:30.
[00:07:50] And he said, no one was here. And I said, well, that's because we moved it. That's an illustration of what happens in big family. Cause we're all busy doing stuff. And sometimes you hear after the fact, in a big family, you have more crazy aunties and uncles, you know, the nutters.
[00:08:08] They're all crazy. You know, they're crazy. And we're really proud of them. We don't quite want to be like them. Okay, but we love them. Okay, but when we're in trouble, who do we go to? Them.
[00:08:22] Because they have an answer. They have a wisdom about them.
[00:08:31] We're diverse yet with identity because a family is from the same DNA. So we have the nose. You know, you can tell people from a family. They've all got that bent nose, you know, I know what family you come from.
[00:08:45] Okay? Our family, we all have. Well, there's a muscle. Don't go there. Joel will tell me there's a muscle in the back. So we all walk on our toes a little. We walk with a spring. We're just happy, you know, but there is a. There is a but. It's in the DNA. And there's something about this family where we don't take ourselves Too seriously. But we take Jesus very seriously. See? So because we don't take ourselves too seriously, when things go wrong, we don't mind. We just laugh and there's joy.
[00:09:22] Sometimes people want to go deep, but we've decided to go joy because in the presence of the Lord is the fullness of joy.
[00:09:33] So that's where we want to be. So it's part of our DNA. And then large families really are accepting and loving, but they have to learn to love each other deeply because they're bigger. It's something that doesn't actually come naturally to them. And so they have to go on a journey. Who holds this all together? Well, those who have taken the journey, you know, the fathers and mothers of this house, if you haven't met them yet, you will. And you know what makes a family? I've already said the DNA, the gathering around his presence and catching the heartbeat of God. You see, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to catch the heartbeat of God. So we're born in, but we're also growing up in the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is he, the Holy Spirit, who calls us to express love to one another. And you see, we know this heartbeat of God is that people would meet him because Jesus was glad. But God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. This is the heartbeat of God. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. God is not cross, but to save, saved the world through Jesus. This is his heartbeat. This is what wakes the Lord up morning and night.
[00:10:59] This is his heart cry that men and women would know Him. But it's also important that the meeting of Jesus becomes the knowing of Jesus. Which is why the apostle Paul prays this incredible prayer in Ephesians. I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people. So he says, you're together in this to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. So that we would meet him, know him, be filled to the fullness. And the only way you know you're full is when you start to overflow with God. So we meet him and we know Him. And this walking with Jesus is always a together thing. Our culture loves to make us like individuals, and we do this on our own. No, the devil always Tries to separate people off. And that's why we have the story of the one sheep, the sheep that has gone wandering. And the shepherd always goes to get the wandering sheep.
[00:12:13] Jesus is always drawing us in. The enemy will tend to try and scatter us because iron sharpens iron. Proverbs says so. It's when we're together that we are sharpened in the challenge of walking with Jesus in amongst all of these people.
[00:12:35] So a healthy family is always embracing those that don't yet know him. Welcoming friends and strangers into the church, preferring others is exhausting, but wonderful because there's always new people coming in, but also watching out for the flock. Is anyone missing? Has anyone gone astray, running after them, noticing that they're not there, and bringing them home? This is what Peter says, learning to love each other deeply. Because love covers a multitude of sins. And it's not that sin is hidden. It's that when we have the heartbeat of God, when we're running after what he loves, sin is irrelevant because his power is alive in our life, not the power of sin.
[00:13:25] So sin is completely irrelevant because our heart is beaten in time with his heart and we're running after him. And so love sometimes means leaving the 99 for the 1. Well, why? Well, the 99 are safe. They're in the flock. They're doing great.
[00:13:42] You know, Jesus is clear. He said, leave the 99 on the plain where everyone can see them. He wasn't saying just desert the church. He was saying, they're all right. They're there. I can see exactly where they are. But the shepherd goes off and he goes and gets the one that has wandered.
[00:14:01] See, Jesus never leaves us alone. Together we're stronger, but we're always looking for. For the lost coin. Just like the woman.
[00:14:13] Has someone got separated? Has someone been hurt? Is someone missing? Because the story of the coin, the one sheep, is precious. But the idea that the woman, this silver coin, was so precious to her, her wealth was in the coin, and she turns the house upside down to finds the missing coin. And every person is so precious. So we come as an individual to Jesus, but then we come part of his people. We get his DNA, the nose or whatever it is, okay?
[00:14:54] And start to be filled with him and become like him. But we do this together. Okay, I've got three minutes, so let's get practical.
[00:15:03] Okay? I wanna. You know me, I don't often ask you to do things. Okay. But I'm gonna strongly make some suggestions for 2025. Okay. That I would love you to do if you would like to do it. I ask my kids to do lots of things and they don't do it. So it's fine, but. Okay. But I think there are some things that could really help you this year. And I know this is getting bigger and the challenge is being known and he always knows us, but it's important that everybody is known among the people by someone. So one of the things we're going to do is in the next few weeks and months we're going to start appointing some what we call area pastors who are going to look after areas of seed and we'll pray over them and identify them in the next few weeks so that they know you. Now, you may be sitting there going, well, I don't want to be known. Well, that's fine, just keep moving and they won't be able to get you. Okay. But a lot of you sit in the same place every time and you do you start to meet the people around you. So these are people that have taken the journey that we trust, that have wisdom, that will start to minister and just watch out for people and take care of some of you. Number two, New life and school of Transformation. If you've given your life to Jesus or you've come back to Jesus, go to new life.
[00:16:38] Get the foundation right. Okay. It's five weeks on a Tuesday night. Get the foundation right. Because everything for the rest of your life is built on the foundation, the rock of Jesus Christ. And when the storm comes, if you're built on the rock, the house will hold. If you have been a Christian, if you've done that or you've been a Christian for a number of years. School of transformation. These are on your seats.
[00:17:08] Most Christians I talk to and most of the questions I'm asked, people have never had the dots of the Bible joined up for them.
[00:17:18] So they know lots of different stories from the Bible but they've never had all the dots joined up. And the idea of school of transformation is to join the dots up and take you on the journey of redemption of the Bible. And Tim does this really well. It will be starting at the end of this month. It's an eight week course. Nearly 500 people have been through it already. And every time people go through it, I hear the stories and I can different because suddenly they're understanding who they are, who God is and what he's called us to do. So if you haven't been on this yet, it's eight weeks, it's on a Monday night. Sign up and come along I promise you it'll change your life. If it doesn't change your life, Tim will give you your money back. Okay?
[00:18:10] Revival prayer. On Tuesday nights, we pray. This is where you pray and experience. There is nothing that happens in this church that isn't birthed in prayer.
[00:18:22] Prayer is where we call out to the Lord. It's where we encounter the Lord.
[00:18:29] It is fundamental to everything the Christian does. So every Tuesday night, 7:30, we worship and pray for a couple of hours. Now, you don't have to stay for two hours. You can stay for 10 minutes. You can dip in and out. I watch lots of people dip in and out. But I want to ask you, would you make prayer a priority in 2025? Because God is about to move. Remember unexpected growth. The unexpected growth comes as the people pray, as the people call out to the Lord and then serve. That's where you learn and belong. You know. You know you're part of a family when you get to, you know, do the washing up, where you get to be part of all that the family's doing. And if more are coming, we need more to serve. So I want to ask you, get on a team. Whether it's putting the chairs out, parking the cars, serving in the children, taking care of the youth, you know, ministering to the sick, feeding the poor. There is so much.
[00:19:30] But become part. Sign up. And there are some forms as you go out, you can just fill in. They'll give you all the information, just a few more things. You see, this place is a safe place for families and the young.
[00:19:48] Big families look out for each other. Kids, church, it's growing and growing. Some of you are producing babies at a rate of knots.
[00:19:58] Thank you very much.
[00:20:01] What I want to say to you parents is don't let them miss it.
[00:20:06] Bring them to church. And as kids grow up, they don't always want to come. Bring them, bring them. They need it. And you're the parent. You don't give them. Or some of you might get. It might be optional to go to school, but it's even more important that they come and be a part of the children's church. Because there is a war after their lives and they need to be in the presence of God with other children and they grow up together. And I love it, watching them grow up together and knowing this band of David's mighty men, you know, or all these little troublemakers growing up into warriors. And that's what God has the youth bring them midweek. Now, I know it's a pain because some of you live out in the county and you don't have time. You bring them in and then you don't have time to get home. And I've heard some disturbing stories. Some of you are praying in the car park because you don't have time to get home. Well done. Now, when we found out you were praying in the car park, I believe we've invited you in to the building to drink coffee and pray. But parents come. Bring your. Bring your teenagers Wednesday nights. They need to grow up in a believing environment with other friends of their own age who love Jesus. Bring them along. Parents. You need other parents that you can talk about the woes and wonders of raising a teenager and pray for one another and pray for the kids. So Wednesdays, really important.
[00:21:43] Really, really nearly done. Changing life roles.
[00:21:48] Some of you used to be young and hip.
[00:21:52] Now you have kids and you're going to bed at 9:00am 9:00pm Sorry, some of you are going at 9. Am I right? Yeah. There you go.
[00:22:04] This is where you need the branches of the church more than ever now. Let me tell you something. You are still called okay, at least until they get to teenagers, okay? Then there is a few years where you're not as cool and you drop them off a few blocks away, okay? But then in their twenties, you become cool again because they need money, okay? So you are still cool. But there is a life change that's happening. You're growing up, you're maturing, and you are becoming someone who is filled with. With Jesus Christ. And now your job is to raise a family, not just be cool.
[00:22:48] And so it's a life change and it is something wonderful because you're on this journey with Jesus. And so there are changes that have to be made. But again, you need branches because you need to mix with, like, people that you like. You sometimes you just want adult conversation. So somebody just give me. I know what it's like. My mum's, you're a new baby. Somebody give me adult conversation. Because you can only watch Teletubbies for so long because it's still on. Not still on. Whatever's still on. You see, I'm scarred.
[00:23:22] But you see, with a large family, there is a sacrifice.
[00:23:33] And we must keep things simple for those coming to faith, we must keep things relevant to the young, even if it's too loud and we're making space because people are sitting in your seats. I mean, it's outrageous, isn't it? You finally find your seat and then somebody's sitting there because you were a minute late. Get Used to it. Baptism services. Sometimes I lose my seat.
[00:24:01] That's what happens.
[00:24:05] Hospitality.
[00:24:07] The way we can love one another is show hospitality. It's the gift of the spirit and one of the most precious in the church. You see, love is inviting people into your world.
[00:24:18] And as you invite people into your world, there are some shocks. You may have someone home and discover they're a labor vocal voter, what are you going to do? Or even worse, they're Calvinist.
[00:24:31] I didn't know there were any left.
[00:24:34] I'm only playing. Or you have a family and they got five children, but they've never got around to getting married. That happened to us once. What do you mean you're not married? How can you not be married? You got five children. Well, guess what? Suddenly you become the discipline and you start to disciple them in your house, over your meal table, in your world.
[00:24:59] And they will be indebted to you for the rest of their lives.
[00:25:06] Next week we have our leaders gathering. We're becoming a family across this nation.
[00:25:14] I think there are 700 booked in. It's going to be busy, especially since we can only fit 620 in the room.
[00:25:23] But we're assuming not everyone will come at the same time.
[00:25:27] But there is a gathering that is happening and they have the nose. They're part of the family.
[00:25:35] They love to gather around the presence. They want to see people saved. They want to see the sick healed.
[00:25:42] They have joy. They want to celebrate everything that God is doing.
[00:25:49] But our treasure and our call is this growing family where the whole family can meet Jesus, have their sins forgiven, their life set on a good trajectory where people dwell in health and safety. And if one wanders, it's like the shepherd or the woman. We go and find the lost sheep or the silver coin because we know that every life is precious to our Jesus. He gave his life for individuals so that people could have his DNA.
[00:26:21] 2024 was an amazing year, but you know, every year we have a choice. Will we run after the heart of our lord Jesus in 2025?
[00:26:35] Thanks for listening to the Chroma Charge podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscrib. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church. For more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship and how to donate, visit our website at Cromer Church.
