Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Chroma Charge podcast.
[00:00:07] I wanted to tell you something really important.
[00:00:10] My. Our. Sorry, I keep saying my. Our daughter. Not my daughter. Our daughter is getting married next week, which is very, very wonderful. We're very excited.
[00:00:23] But do you know, it was a bit of a surprise. Surprised. Not that they would get engaged. We thought they'd get engaged, but they got engaged at Easter. And so we were thinking next year would be the wedding, because my daughter really wants a summer wedding. And then they came out of the front room on the bank holiday in May and said, actually, we changed our minds. We're going to do it this summer. And we were like, this summer, in a few months, we're going to be getting ready. And do you know what was the deciding factor for whether they could actually do it within a short few months? It was, of course, can we get the dress? Can we get the dress in time? That was the most important thing. Why?
[00:01:03] Because she is the gift. Right? I know we're looking at Connor and all the other things that are happening, but really, we're looking at the bride, aren't we? We're looking at the bride on her wedding day. She is the gift. And of course, as Steve walks her up the aisle and there's that moment, isn't there? Who gives this woman to this man? He'll do so proudly and. And she will be the gift to him and he will be the gift to her. They give each other to each other in love.
[00:01:32] And it would be funny, wouldn't it, if they came in their jeans and their, you know, messy old T shirt from yesterday. Of course, they present themselves beautifully on their wedding day. That is what we do.
[00:01:47] Why am I talking about that?
[00:01:50] Well, it's just that the Lord has impressed upon me, prophetically and also biblically, that this is a moment for us in Cromer Church and our wider family who watch online, a moment of consecration.
[00:02:09] And consecration is a lot like marriage, only it isn't exactly the same as marriage, because marriage is the covenant that. That then we go on to celebrate throughout our lives. Consecration is the celebration as we look back on what Jesus has done in our lives.
[00:02:27] He's already saved us, he's already rescued us. We're already in a covenant relationship with him. But we consecrate ourselves by coming before him, renewing and remembering our first love, what he did at the start, you know, in marriage, everybody knows that the best marriages are the ones where they continue to remember their first love in real ways. Actually looking back and remembering and celebrating the love that we had at first. You know, Steve and I have just celebrated our pearl wedding anniversary, which is 30 years. Can you believe it? And we were in Colombia, and so we had a nice dinner out and Steve wore a really nice shirt that of course, I picked for him. And I wore a nice dress, a special dress, like it was our best. And then he gave me pearls. He gave me actual pearls, like a really beautiful pearl necklace to wear. Why did we go to all of that trouble and then the special dinner? Why? Because we remember together our first love. And. And we celebrate what God has done throughout all of those years. We do this in marriage, we do this in covenantal love. We do it as families. And so too, we do it with the Lord. This is a very, very biblical thing. And I believe that we are in a moment chrome a church where we are believing the Lord for a great move.
[00:03:58] We are believing that the Lord is already moving, that he's already done great things among us. And. And yet as we look to him, we know that he's saying, keep going, take another step, there's more.
[00:04:09] And we're asking for his presence to increase in our midst. We're asking for his signs and wonders and the miraculous. And a miraculous move of provision as we move from here. And this is a good time to be covenantal before the Lord and renew our first love consecration.
[00:04:28] And so I want you to grab your Bibles. We're gonna read from Exodus number 19. We're going to read. I'm actually going to read from verse four, but it's going to come up from five on the screens. Will you stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is one of the earliest moments of consecration for God's people that I wanted to read to you today.
[00:04:48] Says this from 19, verse 4. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, and then you shall be my special treasure to me above all people. For all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
[00:05:12] These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. So Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid before them all the words which the Lord commanded him. Then all the people answered together and said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do so. Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord, and the Lord said to Moses, behold, I come to you in the thick Cloud that the people may hear when I speak to you and believe you forever. So Moses told the words of the people to the Lord. Then the Lord said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes and let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day, the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.
[00:05:58] Will you take a seat?
[00:06:04] So here, one of the earliest beautiful moments of consecration before the Lord. They were already his. He'd already won them in the great Exodus event which had just happened. They'd already become his people. He'd already scooped them into his arms. And yet there is this ceremony, this moment of consecration where they have to wash their clothes and do some other things. And we see this continually in the biblical narrative as God moves among his people. But right here, in this moment, they consecrate themselves before the Lord, saying that they will do all that he has commanded. And then they receive the law, and then they receive the priesthood, and then they build the tabernacle, the place that is devoted to the Lord. This is a very common rhythm in Scripture that this happens. And we might think because we're in the new covenant and Jesus has washed us by his blood, we don't have to come before him and wash our clothes in that same way, that we don't have to do it in the same way now. But Jesus has promised that he is going to present us as his bride, pure and spotless. And there are times, there are seasons, where the Lord will move upon us and say exactly the same thing. Consecrate yourself before me. Remember your first love just as you did before, and prepare for the Lord to move among you. You know, in many historical revivals, we see this same thing, this moment of consecrating before the Lord. We see, as you read the history books, that there were seasons of deep and intense progress before the Lord moved. We see seasons of renewal, of covenant love in confession of sin, and moves of holiness in the history books, just in the same way as we see in the Scriptures. And I believe that we're in one of those moments where we're to renew our first love and our commitment to the Lord. Because the Lord is moving, and he's going to move on our land, and he's going to do something special, special and wonderful among us. And so we prepare our hearts, just like I prepared and got ready for my wedding anniversary, and Steve prepared also. We get ready and renew that covenant love. And why do I think this. Well, the Lord spoke to me specifically about this just after our wedding anniversary.
[00:08:38] And I. We were staying in this beautiful hotel and I woke up so starkly, five o' clock in the morning. I knew it was the Holy Spirit because no one wakes up on, you know, a holiday in a beautiful hotel in Colombia at 5 o' clock in the morning.
[00:08:52] And so it wasn't what I wanted to do, but it was like, ding. And these words were just going through my head. And this is what was going through my head. I got up and I wrote it down. You know, you always have to write it down if the Lord speaks to you in the night, because otherwise you will forget it. So I got up and I wrote it down and went back to sleep, then got up, read it. I was like, oh, that's definitely the Lord because of that one phrase in there.
[00:09:14] The Lord had said to me, love the Lord.
[00:09:17] Love your neighbor. Love your enemy. Love the ugly.
[00:09:22] Love yourself. And you know, like, sometimes you. You get a word and you. It's that little funny little word in it. Love the ugly. I'm like, all the rest of it feels very holy and biblical, but love the ugly felt like a stranger. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's you, Holy Spirit. And, you know, I had been reading Exodus. I'd been meditating on the Levitical priesthood and just thinking about what that means in for us and for a season of revival. And. And then the Lord spoke to me about this. And as I was praying, the Lord said, this is your consecration, to renew these vows, to renew this heart of love to me and to the world around you as a moment of remembering your first love before me.
[00:10:06] So that's what we're going to do this morning. We're going to take a trip through these words.
[00:10:13] I've actually got three points, not five. It's five things, but we're going to condense them into three. And we know them. It's a reminder of what we already know. We know the first commandment. Love the Lord your God. Love the Lord.
[00:10:26] And it's what Moses goes on to say next as he recites the word of the Lord to the covenant people. He says, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. The first command, Love the Lord. And this is shown by loving him solely when the people around them are worshipping all sorts of idols. And. And there's all these other false religions, just like there are today. And they love the Lord. We know the Lord is one. One God in three persons, and we worship him alone. Yahweh. Name above all names. We know that, right?
[00:11:05] But you know, as Moses went on and explained in the Ten Commandments and all of the laws that follow, did you know that the first four of the ten commandments are what it means to love the Lord? 1, 2, 3, 4. Four ways of explaining the same thing. Number two. You shall not make for your yourself a carved image. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord, am a jealous God. You shall not take the name of your Lord God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day. One thing said in four ways. Almost half of the Ten Commandments that the Lord gave. This is really, really important.
[00:11:43] He is the name above all names. And what I'm asking us to do today as God's covenant people is consider this in our lives and check our dials and see if we really do in fact love him. Name above all names in all of our lives, in every part. And if we just take this, what Moses said, and we look at it very practically, there can be no carved images, no idols, nothing that is of something else, some other religion, some other idolatrous God. We have none of that. And we don't even have little gnomes in our garden.
[00:12:22] They count. Anything connected to witchcraft, anything connected to the occult. And, you know, sometimes we don't know. Sometimes we pick up these things in an attractive shop. You know, Buddhas can look very attractive. They're in all the garden shops and they're all beautifully gold. And lots of people have them in their gardens. They mean something.
[00:12:42] They mean something before the Lord. And so check your dials. Pray ask the Lord. Is there anything in my house? Is there there anything on my bookshelf? You know, crystals count. Crystals are the Lord's. Crystals in creation are the Lord's. But there is something different that we reproduce in our shops that smell funny. You know, those shops, that kind of smell of incense and, you know, they got all sorts of weird stuff in them. They've got a lot of beautiful stuff, but there's all sorts of weird stuff in those shops. And these little crystals that are shining and emanating, that's all about energy.
[00:13:17] It's New Age witchcraft. Don't have them in your house in any way, shape or form. Get rid of it.
[00:13:25] You shall have no carved image.
[00:13:28] You shall not love the Lord. We do not use God's name in vain. We do not say Jesus Christ as a Swear word. We know that, right? But don't even say God as a frustration. Oh, God, it counts. Don't say it. Don't do it. We only ever say the name of the Lord as a word of reverence and honour and worship. We love you, Lord. We honour him as a friend in intimacy. We never say his name as a swear word or even a curse of frustration. Never.
[00:14:02] And we don't work all the time.
[00:14:04] God's people take Sabbath rest.
[00:14:08] Sabbath rest is all about what it means to love the Lord. He rested on the seventh day. We rest. And it doesn't have to be the exact rhythm as it was in the past. It is a rhythm. It's a rhythm where we do not put work and money before God. Jesus was clear. You cannot serve God and mammon if we live under the tyranny of work. And we never rest. We do not love the Lord.
[00:14:33] We don't trust him as Jehovah Jireh. And the fact that we trust him means we can trust him and rest. We have the rhythm of work and rest in our lives because we love the Lord.
[00:14:46] And Jesus summed it all up in this way. He said, and we know this Matthew 23:37 and elsewhere, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.
[00:14:58] Psalm 24 explains this. It says, who may ascend the hill of the Lord? The one who has clean hands. And what a pure heart.
[00:15:08] Jesus said, love me with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.
[00:15:13] For us to consecrate ourselves, to wash our clothes and to prepare for him is to renew and recommit to our first love, our devotion to him, and look at it across our lives in very practical ways and say, is there anything, Lord?
[00:15:30] And if there is, we get to come to the fountain of the river of life and he will wash us clean.
[00:15:38] You know, God's desire is for us to love him with all our heart, soul and strength, because that's the way he loves us.
[00:15:48] I said it as I read out the commandments, that he is a jealous God, that one of his names is jealous God. Did you know that? It's summed up in the passage that I read at the beginning. 19, verse 5. You shall be a treasure to me above all people. We are his treasured possession. And that's why we love him with all our hearts.
[00:16:12] Jehovah Kanna.
[00:16:14] You know, it's so funny because we're used to saying Jehovah Nissi and Jehovah Jireh and We love all those ones. The Lord's my provider, and you know, the Lord's my healer. And the Lord fights my battles, and we love that. But God is jealous. He's a jealous God. We think of that sometimes as being negative, but it says here Exodus 34. For you shall worship no other God. For the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. You see, this is in the positive when it's talking about covenant love. When I look at Steve, I am jealous for him. When he looks at me, he is jealous for me. There can be no other.
[00:16:56] That's the point, friends.
[00:16:58] When we know he loves us with a jealous love, we can have nothing else in our lives because it's his love that causes us to love.
[00:17:06] And when we're in that covenant relationship of love, we cannot help but honor him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength because he is jealous for us. It's that beautiful song, isn't it? You know that one? He is jealous for me Love like a hurricane I am a tree that bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy he is our portion and we are his prize. It's a beautiful thing to live under the banner of his love.
[00:17:37] And so I asked you this morning to check your dials.
[00:17:41] Ask these questions of yourself. In my decision making, past, present, future, do I put him first? Do I ask him about every decision I make in my work life, family balance? Do I prioritize time with God, corporate and alone in my finances? Do I put God first?
[00:18:02] Oh, we've talked about this one lots.
[00:18:05] You know, I had the most beautiful story just last week. This woman was telling me she's in our church right at the very beginning, and she's seen all of the changes through our church, all of the different things that God has said and done, and the beautiful stuff that's happened in the last seven years.
[00:18:21] And one of the things the Lord has said to us that is a priority is that we get our thinking right on money. Why is that so important?
[00:18:29] Because if we don't understand that he is our provider, we don't understand the blessing and the love of God. If we're afraid to give. We don't understand that he is our heavenly Father who has good things for us. So we get our thinking right about money. And this lady has been on all of the journeys of all the things that. That. That the Lord has said. And one of the things that the Lord has said to us is that we do these declarations. We did one this morning, and she said, do you know What? When we started saying those direct declarations, I really hated them. I don't like saying them. I feel like they're wrong to say before God. It feels weird saying things like checks in the post. I still hate them. And she said, and yet I've never had so many checks in the post as I've had over the last seven years. I'm always getting checks in the. In the post. And she said, and then we say about inheritances, well, I've just got this great big inheritance and I wasn't expecting it and I didn't ask for it. And she said, but do you know what? We have always tithed. And when the children were little, we used to give more than a tithe. We gave to God what belonged to him and more. And we never wanted for anything and we were always happy. And we trusted God and we had a little, but we always had enough. And God has blessed us.
[00:19:41] You see, God cannot bless us if he can't trust us with wealth.
[00:19:46] Because when we receive wealth, we give wealth. We are a generous people. But if we hoard wealth, we cannot be trusted with wealth. If we don't trust him, we cannot be trusted with wealth.
[00:19:58] And it's because he's jealous for me and he loves me. He doesn't want me to worship money.
[00:20:03] He wants to bless me in my finances. Do I put God first? Do my children understand that we make all our decisions asking Jesus first, does work and money ever come before God? If he asked me to do something tomorrow, could I make space and time to do it? Is there sin in my life that I won't give up?
[00:20:24] Do I worship that thing over Him?
[00:20:27] If I'm single, am I looking for somebody to love me and to love who loves him as much as I do is it's so important? Why? Because he is jealous for me and he wants to bless our lives when we know that we're his treasure.
[00:20:50] There's really only one response.
[00:20:54] Number one. Love the Lord.
[00:20:57] Jesus said to me, love the Lord, love your neighbour, love your enemy, love the ugly and love yourself. We're not going to go over every single one in such detail because we don't have to. Firstly, everything flows from us loving the Lord and knowing we are the beloved. You see, when we love the Lord, we love.
[00:21:18] We love because we know his love for us and we love others with the same love. Jesus explained it this way. He said, love the Lord with all your heart, soul and strength. First and great commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your Neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. The Ten Commandments given to Moses expound and explain these two things. The first four are what it means to love God and then honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, wife, or any of their possessions. What's my point? These 10 commandments and all of the other little laws that follow that can sometimes be confusing. Explain and expound these things into our context now. What does it mean for us now to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves?
[00:22:21] All these little laws. And you know, there's one that I really love that I wanted to read to you today because some of them are quite funny, actually, and a little bit confusing when we think of them in our context. But this one, Deuteronomy 25:11 says this.
[00:22:35] If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand and show her no pity.
[00:22:47] I mean, that's quite like. I'm like, what are you, Moses?
[00:22:51] I mean, really? Does that ever really happen? It kind of reminds me of when Jesus was talking about, you know, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's like, who would ever have to do that? What on earth was he talking about?
[00:23:09] But of course, Jesus was talking about the perfection of the Lord that's perfect, perfected in our hearts so that we love as he loved.
[00:23:17] And he goes to extreme lengths to explain that people do people's stuff.
[00:23:23] And we can all be tempted with these things. We can. You know, sometimes people get angry with my husband. Could you believe that? That they ever would? You know, sometimes people pick on leaders. They pick on leaders. Why do they pick on leaders? Because, well, I'm cross with God, so I might as well kick him. And so, you know, sometimes he gets, you know, angry letters or angry, whatever. And would I ever be so angry that I would reach out and grab them by the private parts? I mean, it's ridiculous, isn't it? But I definitely get angry. I can tell you. I definitely get angry. I would never do such a thing. But would I ever be tempted to give a strategic kick?
[00:24:04] Yes, maybe. Maybe I would. You know, I know you we all feel this stuff, right? What's my point? What is my point?
[00:24:14] My point is this. It's about what it is in our context.
[00:24:18] And you know that story.
[00:24:22] Oh, I've seen many couples rile each other in hate and anger. I have. And you know, when. When we're married and one of our. One of us gets hurt, we have a choice. The other person has a choice. I can rile them in anger and hate, or I can encourage them in love.
[00:24:40] What does it look like, Steve, to love them? Jesus said, love your enemies, Pray for those who persecute you, forgive. You see, our brother is never the enemy. The enemy is our enemy. Remember that. The words that Jesus gave me, love your neighbor, love the ugly.
[00:24:58] You know, we don't love the ugliness, the ugliness of sin in people's lives, but we do love the person always. And who is my neighbour? Well, our neighbour is actually our neighbour. Our neighbour is the person next door. Our neighbour is the person at work sitting opposite us. Our neighbour is the person we sit beside on the bus. And sometimes it can be really hard to love them because sometimes they do stuff, ugly stuff, and we have to love them with the love of God. And it's not easy. Do you know, I was in my.
[00:25:30] First of all, let me tell you this, and it's a private, secret thing, you mustn't tell anybody, but I have a little bit of a cantankerous neighbor and he's quite well known in the area for being a tad grumpy. And he's just a shouter, you know, someone that just shouts all the time. And he's the kind of person that if somebody comes around to do building work on your garden, which has happened before, and they put a fence up, he'll be there, like with his leg going, don't you step over my boundary. Which is really hard when you're putting a fence up. I mean, he will actually do that. He's just a bit cantankerous. And, you know, we're trying to love him, but it's not easy. Anyway, one day I was. A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my bedroom and I could hear him scream, like, shouting at the top of his voice at his daughter in the garden. She's 17. Everybody could hear his son was there and he was just yelling at her. Now, she had probably done something naughty, but he was just dressing her down. He was swearing at her. And I just felt so grieved and so angry, right? Just got up, went outside and I gave Him a dressing down in public, outside. I was like, just. Do you know what your words mean? The words that you. And I just gave it. I didn't swear, but I definitely told him what's what. And this little girl was like standing there and his son was standing there and he was quite speechless actually, for once in his life, which was a good thing. And I just walked away. And Holy Spirit just said, that was not love.
[00:27:06] I just felt that thing, you know, love the ugly, love your neighbor.
[00:27:12] And it's not. You see, the thing he was doing was really ugly.
[00:27:16] But the enemy is the enemy. He is not. We always love the person. And of course I was loving my neighbor, the little girl who was getting that dressing down. But that was not enough before God. And as I drove back from my shopping, you know, you always go away from it, don't you? And don't immediately do what the Lord has said. Well, maybe you don't, but I do. I'm just check that is actually what you're saying, Lord. And drove. Drove back. And as I drove back, he was outside with his son. And the Lord and the Holy Spirit, he just said to me, go and apologize. So I went up to him and I said to him, listen, I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have done that thing. I shouldn't have said that to you in front of your daughter, in front of your son. I dishonored you. I dishonored your family. But listen, I just. All I want to say to you is I think there is another way. It's not my business how. How you raise your daughter. And it just hurt me because I knew it hurt her. But I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have spoken to you in that way. And I turned to his son and I said, I'm so sorry that I spoke to your dad in the way I did. I dishonored him. And I didn't mean what I said. It was wrong. Will you forgive me? And so I asked them to forgive me and they did. And it was fine. And I walked away. And I knew that what I'd done was love.
[00:28:25] You know, we have these moments and it's not easy. But Holy Spirit has written the law of God into our hearts and he wants to show us how to love the Lord and love our neighbour as ourselves. And you see, this is the third thing. We love our neighbour as ourselves. When we have been perfected in his love, when we know we are his treasured royal possession, that he is jealous for me.
[00:28:54] I can love myself with a Love where I know that I am worth so very much before God and then I can see other people through the same eyes.
[00:29:03] I can't curse or hurt another person without Holy Spirit touching my heart and saying, that is not my love. Because Jesus died for them while they were still sinners.
[00:29:15] He loves.
[00:29:16] He loved you and me. And we have to love others with the same.
[00:29:20] And that doesn't mean we don't ever confront anything, but we always love the person and we always demonstrate love.
[00:29:27] And you see this whole thing, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.
[00:29:35] It overflows into everything. It's not just our social holiness that I've been explaining, it becomes our moral holiness as well.
[00:29:46] You see, suddenly, and we understand why the law was so detailed and why Jesus said, if you even look at a woman lustfully, you have committed adultery in your heart. Why? Because if we love with his love, we cannot sin against another person who he loves.
[00:30:05] I can't look at pornography because I know that is a person he loves.
[00:30:11] I can't commit adultery because I know that I live in covenant love and I will not show dishonour to another person because that is a person he loves. That's why Jesus said, if you even look, I can't steal, I can't covet, I can't do those things. I can't do dishonest business dealings, because in my heart the Lord has written his law, a law that is his love.
[00:30:44] And as we consecrate ourselves before the Lord today, I am asking you, consider him in all your ways and ask him, is there any place where you have lacked his love and you need to confess before the Lord and renew your love for him and your love for others?
[00:31:04] And I just wanted to, as I finish read this verse to you, it's one of my favorite passages of scripture. It's 2 Corinthians 3. 2 Corinthians 33 says this.
[00:31:16] You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but tablets of human hearts.
[00:31:30] Holy Spirit wants to show us how to do this.
[00:31:34] But do you know that what that passage is saying is that we become the love letter of God to the world because with the ink of the Spirit he has written, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbour as yourself, into our very hearts. And he wants to lead us to write that story into the lives of the people around us and the people said Amen.
[00:32:05] Thanks for listening to the Coma Church Podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. 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.
[00:32:26] It.
