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I want you to keep that eager gaze on Jesus, who's the center of it all—not the speaker, but the King of glory in this place. As we gather together, try to keep that attentiveness to him and his Holy Spirit.
We've just returned from a powerful three-day event called "Turn the Nations." It was so challenging that I told Jonathan I don't think I have any message left, which is awkward because you're all here to hear one. But here's what I learned: it's not good to speak what you're not yet living. The Holy Spirit anoints where there's reality, not just truth.
However, the stories we heard from this nation and nations around the world made one thing unmistakably clear: God is moving powerfully. There's a sense that the wind of the Spirit is beginning to blow more strongly upon His people. Salvation is breaking loose. There are breakthroughs in nations I had no knowledge of.
Though gross darkness is filling the earth, the glory of the Lord is rising now upon His people. There is a deep stirring going on. There are seismic changes happening, and the Spirit of God is brooding over His people.
Bath is included in His gaze. His eternal promise to this city was: "I will pour out my glory in the city upon my people, and this city will become an Antioch, and many will go from the city to many nations under the anointing that God puts upon His people."
I'm so hungry to say: "Oh, Holy Spirit, even today, fan the flames in our hearts because we want to be in what you're doing, not observing what you're doing."
Though there's gross darkness, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back upon His people all over the world. All He wants is hungry hearts—quick responding hearts saying, "I'm in, Lord. Here I am." And when He hears that response, He can't wait to pull on the eternal callings deep inside us and say, "Right, I'm going to surface it."
I sense that the Holy Spirit is wooing us to go back to eternal things. These last years of confusing noise have almost sought to dumb down and cover over the eternal mandate He put within our hearts—that we would live all out for Jesus Christ. We'd be radical followers. We wouldn't be suffocated by the pleasures of this world, but set apart as a people upon whom His glory could come in these days.
I believe you'll find that in these days, the Spirit of God will keep landing upon treasures and noble themes of heaven that stir your heart again and make you think: "Oh, I'm all in for Jesus."
All He wants is your yes.
Let's turn to Colossians 1:19-21:
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus]. And through him to reconcile to himself all things... things on earth and things in heaven.
Picture this: Here's the Father. Jesus is the living Son of God forever—always has been. But in a mysterious way, as He comes to earth to be born as a baby and becomes a beautiful young growing human being, God says: "I'm so pleased, my dear Son, to have all my fullness in You while You're on the earth."
All of God's attributes, all His nature, all His power were poured into Jesus so that He on earth could represent the wonder of who the Father is in heaven.
Then it says: "Through him to reconcile to himself all things." There's nothing outside the wonderful horizons of a perfect Father that He is not eager to reconcile—every single human being, a broken world, even the whole cosmos back to Himself, to overcome a devil who tried to steal it.
How is this Father going to reconcile every single person back to Himself? Will it be through religion? Never. Religion always says: "If you do these certain works, you will get closer to God." But you'll have to keep going, and you'll never know when you've got there. It's a terrible yoke—the slavery of religion.
How does He do it? By making peace through His blood shed on the cross.
That's it. That's how everything is reconciled. The Son of God, full of all the fullness of God, crucified on a cross, bearing all of our stuff, so that every single one of us could be reconciled back to a perfect Father who thinks the world of us.
"You were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation." (Colossians 1:21-22)
We have this beautiful picture of the eternal reconciling heart of the Father. One of the things I believe He wants to reclaim is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I think the gospel has gotten watered down. I think it's been added to, almost undone from its pure, glorious power. The power of Jesus Christ hanging on a cross with His arms stretched out, representing the heart of the Father, calling all men everywhere forevermore: "Will you come back to this Father and be loved by Him for the rest of your days? Will you be reconciled?"
This word reconciled—I absolutely treasure it. I think of an enemy becoming a friend. What a friend of God! Is that possible with my sin-stained past? With all my muck? Absolutely. Because when the blood of Jesus fills your journey and the effect of the cross comes into play, you end up blameless in the sight of your Father. You end up free of any accusation. You end up with all shame broken off you because that's the power of the blood of Christ, who makes peace for you with the Father through the cross.
The gospel is powerful. It can transform the depths of the human heart that is feeling so far from God. When it dawns on them that they don't have to do anything—they simply have to believe in the wonder of what the Father did through His Son on the cross—when He stretched His arms out, they just have to dare to believe: "You love me that much? You'd give Your Son for me? You'd hang Him on a cross?"
Why? Because as a Father, He so wants us to be drawn back near to Him and to live deeply close with Him in union with Him.
Paul says: "I'm not ashamed of the gospel." Why? "Because it is the power of God for salvation for all who believe."
All you have to do is put your trust. Dare to believe that this extraordinary God—like no other of the gods who say they're God when they're not, their idols—this heavenly Father gave His precious Son, Jesus, so that anyone, anywhere, anytime—even in this room today—who dares to believe in Jesus as their Savior gets reconciled to Him just by turning back to Him and saying, "I need you."
The sin-stainedness is cleansed. Suddenly in the light and the eyes of this Father, you're without blame. You're free from accusation.
How many followers of Jesus could well do with living even freer from accusation and blameless in the sight of the Father who loves you? Wouldn't it be amazing to have a shame-free bunch of saints who know who they are in His eyes because they've dared to continue in their faith—knowing it was the work of the cross, never about how well they were doing?
Don't you think that brings peace to the heart? I can stand here and just think: I'm at peace with Him—not because I did well this week or I went to a conference, but because of this precious, powerful blood of Jesus.
I want to suggest that reclaiming the power of the gospel means that when people get saved, addictions should be broken. Demons should flee. Healing should run through every corner of a person's being because that's what Jesus paid for when He stretched His arms out. There should be an immense reconciling of that person to the Father in every way possible that's in His heart.
All week, I've been hearing stories of baptisms being so powerful. Someone sent me a story about eyesight being healed in the waters of baptism. At the conference, I was sitting with a friend from America. They told us their daughter had the severest allergy to wheat—so bad her whole life that when she got anywhere near it, her skin would break into sores and she'd be crying with pain.
Just before her baptism, God spoke to her and said: "I'm going to heal you in the waters of baptism." Her father thought: "Oh God, I hope You do." But she went in the water. She came out and said, "Dad, I'm free." She went and ate wheat, and has been completely healed ever since. She told her story to someone in London who had the same thing. They got baptized and got completely healed. The story started spreading to other people with severe allergies who are now being healed.
I don't understand it all. All I know is: God loves to save powerfully, not piecemeal. He is the Savior. He gave it all. He's the Father. He wants to reconcile every corner of every human being with the power of His love and give them a whole new start where history doesn't govern their future.
Let's look at 2 Corinthians 5:18:
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
As your life is reconciled to this Father through Jesus, God says: "Now, can I give you the ministry of reconciliation to take everywhere you go?" You become ambassadors of reconciliation.
An ambassador is one sent by a king to represent his desires and agendas wherever they are, even into foreign lands. Paul is saying: Just as you've had this remarkable new start, as you've become a new creation—old things have passed away—God stamped His approval on you to become an ambassador of reconciliation.
Wherever you go, you are representing the Father's heart to help others edge their way back towards true, full reconciliation.
Whether you're in a coffee shop, or as a teacher, mother, or whatever role you have, I pray that somewhere in your heart is this eager sense of the Father's heart in you, looking at everybody around you in the day and saying: "I wonder, Lord, whether I can help them move closer to You so eventually they're fully reconciled and have a completely new start, free of the past."
The gospel is powerful. I feel like something has edged at it to take away its power and numb us. We almost think, "I don't know. I don't want to talk about the cross. It's a bit funny, isn't it?" In today's world, a bit of wood. And we miss the opportunity for a human being to be profoundly invaded by a Father's love.
I'm not talking about shouting it out. I'm talking about this deep sense: I'm an ambassador even this Sunday. Wherever I go this afternoon, wherever I am tomorrow morning, I'm an ambassador of reconciliation to a crying, orphaned world that desperately needs to know the same peace that's available through the cross.
May His peace fill your heart even now, especially from those accusations that constantly nag at you as a believer. "You just aren't doing very well, are you? You don't make it, do you?" And then that funny thought: "I guess He's disappointed with me then." Once you get that disappointed thought, you feel separate from the closeness of a Father's presence. That's a horrible feeling.
This is why Paul says in Romans 8: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Paul is asking: Who could anybody separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, the sword?
In those beautiful passages, Paul goes: "Do you realize who you are? Do you realize that in the worst of things, nothing can separate you from the love of Christ? Nothing—nothing of this Father's love in His beloved Son emanating out of Him can separate you."
You are permanently included in the love of Jesus and the Father toward you.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" Don't you kind of go: I got to drink that in. I thought God was disappointed with me. No, He's a Father who's utterly for you as you venture out into this world every day to be the best ambassador you can—but never allowing the enemy's shame to dumb down the joy of who He made you.
No marks out of 10. That's religion. The spirit of religion and the spirit of politics is marauding the church from being the beautiful church it's meant to be.
He wants us to reclaim the noble, precious things of eternity where God filled His Son with all His fullness and sent Him into the world. In a moment of time, Jesus Christ died for all of us so sin-stainedness would be removed and we were righteous in His sight.
And you kind of go: "I don't feel it." Get over it! The blood of Jesus is more important than my feelings. I know I'm getting on one, but there we go. Because I feel like He wants us to stand right up even more fully in this hour because there's so much brokenness out there. To be an ambassador of reconciliation is the most glorious calling.
Many of you in this room have been aware of our dear friends who went to prison in February this year. If you're a visitor here, forgive me. This is a story we've been traveling with as a church community. Our very dearest friends were put in prison in a very persecuted country in February.
I've been trying to think, along with many of you: Lord, do you want us to learn something out of this whole episode? Can it inspire our lives in this kind of fresh awakening of God? Can we deepen our understanding of His call on us through the lesson of Pete and Barbie and what's happened?
Here are a few things that went through my mind:
First, hardship and suffering is part of a true follower of Jesus Christ in their pilgrimage. I know that sounds obvious. But in the Western world, we've gotten pretty comfortable. We complain about big electricity bills. "It's really not fair." But I feel like we're being called to a more radical pursuance of Jesus where hardship, trouble, nakedness, persecution are not things we say "No thanks" to.
These friends are in prison in a persecuted land, and they come out radiant and full of God. And I think: I'm being challenged to understand that hardship and troubles and suffering—not because we sin deliberately, but because we follow Jesus Christ—are part of the whole pilgrimage.
Maybe the awakening going on is to cause us to be more robust about what's going on around us as part of the journey of being a pilgrim.
Second, we're being schooled into a deep, persevering prayer as a community. When we pray for a little bit and nothing happens, we don't go: "Oh, well that didn't work, did it?"
I wonder whether we're being schooled into a much more robust, persevering prayer—one that pushes on and on. Not just for the release of our friends, but so that heaven breaks loose in that nation because we seize the opportunity to pray even more for the kingdom of heaven to come in that nation.
We were just being drawn together to press into prayer more and more for heaven to come in nations, in our city, in situations that seem imprisoned. But I think sometimes we think: "Well, it didn't work, did it? Three months gone by?" We flag occasionally. You look so sanctified I just can't. I pray every hour, I put the alarm on, pray again. Like, well, every two hours because, you know, maybe it's going to take longer.
And then one day I didn't pray at all for them. I was feeding my face at suppertime, thinking: I have not prayed for my friends in prison. But God isn't condemning. He's lifting us to maturity. I wonder whether we're being matured in prayer and perseverance that dares to believe us. You continue as a community, strongholds start coming down because you dared to believe that's what we're born for.
Third, and this is crucial: they didn't quit on the call on them.
When the current government came into power in that nation, everybody from the West quit. They ran for it. But our dear friends just stood there and said: "God hasn't told us to leave." I wanted to say: "Just get out, guys! You don't need a word from the Lord. You just need to get out!" But there's a sense in which they didn't grab the plane. "Look, I'll give you £1,000. I'll borrow it. Whatever."
Why am I saying it? Because I feel like they're an example of a deepening commitment to the mandate and call on you in your life. You were raised up for this hour. We're being called to press on even more into the mandate of heaven, even when it feels like it's put upon our lives.
I'm speaking to you personally. After 50 years in this city, sometimes the mandate I felt He gave Sue and me, I just kind of go: "You know what? I'll just dial down. I'll just live a good Christian life. I'll get on a roster. That's what I'll do." The rosters are good.
But hear my heart: The call, the eternal mandate as to why you were put on the earth is going to be tested in this hour. It's time to stand up in it, not to dial down because the pressure is too big.
Barbie kept saying something every day in prison. This is what they said: "Nothing happens quickly. Everything happens suddenly."
It's not a verse in the Bible—don't come sweaty at me about it. But take the point in it: Do you understand?
The persevering prayer means we're overturning a McDonald's thought. Nothing happens quickly. But you keep going. You keep going. You keep going.
You were born for something deep in your heart that God put there. You were raised up in this hour for something that goes very deep inside you. And it's bullying, uncomfortable, because it isn't all there yet. But nevertheless, you keep going with the mandate inside you. You keep saying, "Oh, Holy Spirit, keep fanning that inside me so that even though things seem imprisoning, I dare to believe there will be a suddenly somewhere because I did not quit from the call of Jesus Christ upon my life."
I'm looking around this room, and I'm already thinking about some of you. I want to encourage you: Don't let pressure or trouble or hardship or nakedness or sword or accusation subdue you. I'm only encouraging you because, trust me, I have my struggles of just wanting to quit—not from Jesus, but from the mandate. And I want to say: I believe we should just pray today that the Holy Spirit will ignite our hearts with a fiery stirring that helps us keep faithful both to the blood of Jesus—so that we know we're at peace with the Father—and to the mandate that He's given so many of you in this room and us together.
I want to invite you now to respond to what God is stirring in your heart. If you've never been reconciled to God, if you've never known that beautiful homecoming, if you've stepped back from following Him and it's just dulled, or if you simply sense the Holy Spirit calling you deeper into your eternal mandate—come. There's a prayer team here ready to partner with you.
Freedom is here today. The Spirit of God is moving. This is your time to meet with God.
