SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to be with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I was away last week, and two weeks seems like a massive chunk of time when you miss church.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if some of you are in the habit of missing a few weeks, but for me, two weeks is just too long.
SPEAKER_00: So it's great to be back in the house of God with you again this morning.
SPEAKER_00: As um as we just step out of communion and perhaps into the word this morning, I want us to just stay in awe of Him.
SPEAKER_00: I really feel like Jenny and the worship team have just set a tone for us this morning as we've just praised and worshiped God, and I want us to just stay in that place.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just be in awe of him this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna pray before I start.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray this morning, Lord, that you will do, Lord, in your people here today, only Lord, only what you can do.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray in it and through it all, Lord, you will work in us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that in my frailty as I try and deliver, Lord, what it is that you are wanting to say.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, Lord, that we will hear the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, bless us this morning as we receive from you.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: The title for my sermon this morning is Let His Face Shine Upon Us and Others.
SPEAKER_00: Let His Face Shine Upon Us and Others.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have your Bibles with you, can we turn to Psalm 67, as Katie's already said?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm reading from the NIV.
SPEAKER_00: Says, May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face shine upon us, so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: May the peoples praise you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: May all the people praise you.
SPEAKER_00: May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the people with equity and guide the nations of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: May the people praise you, God.
SPEAKER_00: May all the people praise you.
SPEAKER_00: The land yields its harvest.
SPEAKER_00: God our God blesses us.
SPEAKER_00: May God bless us still, so that the ends of the earth will fear him.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm feeling like God wants us to hear his heart behind the psalm this morning.
SPEAKER_00: That there's a message in this today for us all, but also a message for us to carry to those who are on the periphery.
SPEAKER_00: Church, I want us to be encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to embarrass anyone today, but you know, sat amongst us in this congregation, there's men and women and boys and girls who six months ago, twelve months ago were lost and they were wandering around in the wilderness and not sure where to turn next.
SPEAKER_00: But today, they're adopted into this family we know as church.
SPEAKER_00: They're adopted into the family of God and they enjoy the presence of God today.
SPEAKER_00: Their lives look really different.
SPEAKER_00: There's a call that rests on our lives that should cause effect to a hurting world.
SPEAKER_00: We're living in a moment in time where the world needs to see a church walking and operating in the love and the power and the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I purposely this morning stood out in the foyer and I watched many of you arriving.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, for so many of you, I just thanked God.
SPEAKER_00: In that scripture it says, make his face shine upon us.
SPEAKER_00: You were arriving with such joy on your faces.
SPEAKER_00: You was arriving with such joy on your faces.
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, you were, and I just thanked God for that in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: And the first point I want to make this morning is this the blessing, the grace, the face, and the salvation that we read about in this scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It's all his, but it's available to us all.
SPEAKER_00: And as we kick off this morning, we need to start from that place.
SPEAKER_00: A question I want to ask us is this, and I want us to be honest with ourselves this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Where does your mind automatically go when you think about blessing and salvation?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think of yourself or does your mind go straight to thinking of others?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you to share, I just want you to think on that and ponder that this morning as I continue to speak.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to move on now.
SPEAKER_00: I want to share a story with you that um I feel like as I've been preparing this psalm and preparing this message, I really feel like um this story is just completely woven through what God has been saying in this psalm.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna mention the name of the guy straight away because there's family members here this morning of this man.
SPEAKER_00: But um a number of years ago, in fact, 21 years ago, I met a man in Canterbury College, a man called Fred Benzies.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you will know that name this morning, and um I was 18 years old, and I went to Canterbury College to study carpentry and joinery, and there were four lecturers there, and Fred happened to be one of these four.
SPEAKER_00: And there was something different about this man, he carried out his professionalism really well, he was a great teacher, but there was just something uniquely different about him, his patience, his presence, it just stood out the way he was.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I didn't really know what that was.
SPEAKER_00: He taught us, I completed the course, I went on to carry on my profession in carpentry and joinery, and then five years later, I was in this church, we had a service where the churches in the area were coming together, and me and Fred we became face to face again.
SPEAKER_00: But what I need to say to you this morning is within that five years, I'd become a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: God had changed my life, and as we came face to face, Fred glowing, glowing for Jesus, he said to me, I just can't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I can't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, year upon year upon year, for all you students, he said, I prayed that God would just reach out and touch someone's life.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I prayed that God would just break in and touch your lives.
SPEAKER_00: And I imagine in his professionalism, he felt like he maybe couldn't share what he wanted to share, but something oozed out of him, something was there, something was present.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we stood in that foyer, and like I sometimes do, and like David Caseon always does, we were crying together, but they were tears of happy joy, they really were.
SPEAKER_00: Fred said to me, Where are you working at the moment?
SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm working down in Lyddon.
SPEAKER_00: We were converting a pub into a dwelling, and he said, Okay, he said, I want to come and see you, I want to visit you.
SPEAKER_00: He um he came to visit me and he was checking up on my work, I suppose, like lecturers would do.
SPEAKER_00: And um as we went through all of that and and looked at everything, we were we just found ourselves upstairs in the room and he said, You know what?
SPEAKER_00: He said, You've blessed me so much.
SPEAKER_00: And um this is the exchange, this is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That only He can do this.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Fred, you've blessed me, you've blessed me like you would never imagine.
SPEAKER_00: And we were just stood upstairs, we prayed together.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to pray into my future, and I prayed to God, I prayed thanks for this man.
SPEAKER_00: It was an amazing moment.
SPEAKER_00: He was blessing me, and according to him, I was blessing him.
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to hold that as we go through the rest of this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: In 2024, I went with Katie, who is his niece, and we went and visited Fred.
SPEAKER_00: He was poorly at this time, and you know he was still glowing, he was so poorly, but he was still glowing for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And right at the end, Fred being Fred, he couldn't help it, but he handed me a little yellow posted note and he drew a picture on it, and he drew a picture of me on one side on this cliff edge, and God the Father on another, and then he drew the cross in the middle and he said, Jesus is the way to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Never forget it, and I took that with me, and then fast forwarding a bit further on in November 24, I attended his funeral, and men and women stood and gave tribute, and like often you hear at a funeral, sometimes people get up and they want to say good things, they want to say the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: But I tell you now, at Fred's funeral, there was a heart behind what was being shared.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a tokenistic this man was good, I knew him for so long, he did X, Y, and Z.
SPEAKER_00: People shared stories of where Fred had had a real life impact, where Jesus had come and used this man.
SPEAKER_00: To my knowledge, no title, but God had used his life and helped him impact the lives of other people.
SPEAKER_00: His face shone.
SPEAKER_00: And I thank God for such a man.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at the text this morning, I want us to just pick up on three things.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to quickly look at grace.
SPEAKER_00: God says, You are loved.
SPEAKER_00: May God be gracious to you.
SPEAKER_00: You are loved, forgiven, and accepted.
SPEAKER_00: Church, can you hear this this morning?
SPEAKER_00: You can now live from that place.
SPEAKER_00: A former pastor here, he once put it like this G-R-A-C-E.
SPEAKER_00: God's riches at Christ's expense.
SPEAKER_00: And today, church, I wonder if we have an attitude and an understanding that God's grace doesn't just save us, it changes us and it shapes us.
SPEAKER_00: God, be gracious to us and bless us so that the nations may know you.
SPEAKER_00: Grace is not giving us what we've earned, grace is God giving us what Christ has earned on our behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Grace found me and reshaped my life.
SPEAKER_00: Grace has found many across this room.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I want to say majority, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00: But God's grace is not restricted to this church.
SPEAKER_00: God's grace is not restricted to a type of person, a background, an age, or a social position.
SPEAKER_00: God's grace is meant to flow and overflow and reach the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Church is an unstoppable God.
SPEAKER_00: It's an unstoppable God.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to touch on the blessing before I get to my final point.
SPEAKER_00: God's blessing isn't more money, bigger houses, or even an easier life.
SPEAKER_00: It's far more than this.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be careful sometimes with our blessed language.
SPEAKER_00: I thought this in my preparation.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're really quick to say that God has blessed us when something good has happened.
SPEAKER_00: We're really quick to say that maybe when we've received something, this is a blessing from God.
SPEAKER_00: But I believe that God wants that blessing to be part of our language in our everyday life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not shaped by things we received, it's not shaped by good circumstances and good outcomes.
SPEAKER_00: God blesses us.
SPEAKER_00: His blessing is in and through everything.
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere we walk, everywhere we go, people we come into contact with, he's blessing us and he's blessing others.
SPEAKER_00: God's blessing starts with himself, but he chooses to bless us in order that we might bless others.
SPEAKER_00: His favor, his presence, and his goodness upon your life.
SPEAKER_00: They enable you to flourish in a purpose and become a blessing to others.
SPEAKER_00: You know, my youngest daughter, Annabelle, she's 11 years old, and last week she went on a date.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, I know what you're all thinking.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just touching on blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, she went on a date with someone in this church.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to embarrass them this morning, but it's another female.
SPEAKER_00: She's about, I think about 25 to 30 years older.
SPEAKER_00: But this person took my 11-year-year-old daughter out and they just had a great few hours together.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they went out and had lunch together.
SPEAKER_00: And when they returned home, Annabelle was absolutely like full of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, what a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: What a blessing that is to my daughter.
SPEAKER_00: That someone else, so much further apart in age, would just say, like, we're going to go out and we're just going to spend time together.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to hang around together.
SPEAKER_00: I want to bless you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to buy you food.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to treat you.
SPEAKER_00: How amazing is God.
SPEAKER_00: It's relationship before its provision.
SPEAKER_00: I love the movement in this psalm.
SPEAKER_00: Bless us so your ways may be known throughout the earth.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in Genesis chapter 12, Abraham, I will bless you and you will be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: One church, I will bless you, and you will be a blessing to many.
SPEAKER_00: Paul explains in Galatians chapter 3, he says, God's promise to Abraham was to bless the nations throughout the earth.
SPEAKER_00: It rested on the faithfulness of this book, the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: 4,000 years ago, when God made that promise to Abraham, we find ourselves today in this space, 4,000 years apart.
SPEAKER_00: His promise is still yes and amen.
SPEAKER_00: He's not grown tired, he's not weary.
SPEAKER_00: We serve a God who is able.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: All your promises are yes and amen.
SPEAKER_00: We read in this book that God is faithful to keep his promises.
SPEAKER_00: Every word he speaks, every promise he makes from the Old Testament to the new is wrapped up in the guarantee of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Church, get stuck into his word.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be blessed this morning, get stuck into his word.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, it'll far outweigh anything you'll ever receive from anywhere else.
SPEAKER_00: Get stuck into his word, take it into your heart, take it into your being, let it flow from you.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: My final point this morning is this I want to pick up on.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the face.
SPEAKER_00: It says there in the very first verse, make his face shine upon us, so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Where does that face shining come from?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question I asked this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this in Exodus chapter 34.
SPEAKER_00: It says, When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the tablets of the law, his face was shining.
SPEAKER_00: He was glowing for God.
SPEAKER_00: He had that look about him, his face reflected God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: And church, I want you to hear this today.
SPEAKER_00: You look your best when the face of God is shining out of your life.
SPEAKER_00: You look your best when God is shining from within you.
SPEAKER_00: When you're in his presence, when the proximity is close, you have that glow of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've had testimonies in this church of people who've received salvation, where people have had friends even say to them, and I can't comprehend this, and you probably can't either, but this is true.
SPEAKER_00: People have shared this with me.
SPEAKER_00: They said, since I've become a Christian, I've shared it with my friends.
SPEAKER_00: They've heard it, they've seen things in my life, but they've said to me, You look different.
SPEAKER_00: You look different, praise God, to him who is able to do immeasurably more.
SPEAKER_00: What's that song we sing in church?
SPEAKER_00: Come alive in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought about this as I was preparing.
SPEAKER_00: This is not doctrine, by the way, this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This is just a story.
SPEAKER_00: But my mind took me to this place, and I thought, can you imagine that lifelett was crushed and was dead and was bound up?
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: And this is just a bit of a story, you have to go with me.
SPEAKER_00: But man goes and he arrives at passport control and he presents his passport to the immigration officer.
SPEAKER_00: And the immigration officer's like, this doesn't match.
SPEAKER_00: This is not your passport.
SPEAKER_00: And Steve's like that, he's like, Yeah, uh, that's the old me.
SPEAKER_00: That's the old me.
SPEAKER_00: That's the world's version of me.
SPEAKER_00: But what you see here today is the real Steve.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, I'm born again.
SPEAKER_00: But now you see something that was created in the image of God, where he poured in his grace.
SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed beyond measure, where he's put a new song in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: And the immigration officer says, Who?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Let me introduce you to my friend.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he would say, This is the face he intended me to have: the smile, the shine, the born-again life, the spirit-filled face, puffed with the beauty of God radiating out.
SPEAKER_00: The face that shines because the truth prevails, the face that shines because I now live under his grace, where shame and guilt and condemnation have no authority in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: You know, years ago we were going through some old family pictures, and um one of my children picked up a photograph and they said, Who's this man?
SPEAKER_00: And my dad said, That's me.
SPEAKER_00: My dad said, That was me in my old life.
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember which one it was, but one of my kids said, What do you mean, grandad, your old life?
SPEAKER_00: He said, I was lost for 40 years.
SPEAKER_00: They said, What do you mean you were lost?
SPEAKER_00: He said, I was just walking around in a wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: I said, We don't really understand.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Let me tell you, 40 years ago, he said, Jesus came into my life and he created a new man.
SPEAKER_00: He put a new spirit in me, he put a new song in my heart where I lived again.
SPEAKER_00: That's my old life.
SPEAKER_00: This is me today.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Church, I want our faces and our actions and our words to say it all.
SPEAKER_00: Let your light shine.
SPEAKER_00: Spend time with God, walk with him, share with him, trust him.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep it simple.
SPEAKER_00: Where's Diane Neary?
SPEAKER_00: Is she here this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Diane Neary.
SPEAKER_00: Keep it real, she says.
SPEAKER_00: Keep it real.
SPEAKER_00: Diane spent years talking to youngsters in schools, being around teenagers.
SPEAKER_00: She says to me, just keep it real.
SPEAKER_00: How'd you do it?
SPEAKER_00: You just keep it real.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe today you're someone who's been on a journey for 30 or 60 years, maybe even.
SPEAKER_00: God put this in my spirit as I was preparing.
SPEAKER_00: It reminded me of that scripture in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Church.
SPEAKER_00: I'm knocking again.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, I stand at the door and knock.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe today God is speaking into your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe saying, I want you to take the mask off.
SPEAKER_00: Your concerns, your anxiety, your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to take your masks off.
SPEAKER_00: I'm knocking again.
SPEAKER_00: Let me into your debt.
SPEAKER_00: Let me into your family.
SPEAKER_00: In it and through it all, my face can shine again.
SPEAKER_00: I want to use you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to reach you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to use you to reach a broken world.
SPEAKER_00: Let your light shine.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 5, it says this.
SPEAKER_00: Who lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the words of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Who lights a lamp, puts it under a bowl?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe for some of us here today, I feel like actually in this environment on a Sunday, this is our safe space.
SPEAKER_00: This is the place where actually we do remove the masks.
SPEAKER_00: And we are alright, we are comfortable in this environment.
SPEAKER_00: But for some of us, the masks go back on tomorrow morning.
SPEAKER_00: And on other days during the week.
SPEAKER_00: This is not condemnation this morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: This is a simple gospel message, but there are other days, and there are other people where some of you you have different masks.
SPEAKER_00: You have a different mask for this day and a different mask for that day.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I want my light to shine out of your face.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be the man I created you to be.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be the woman I created you to be.
SPEAKER_00: Stop putting the masks on.
SPEAKER_00: Who lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl?
SPEAKER_00: What are we doing?
SPEAKER_00: Why would we do that?
SPEAKER_00: You're beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Take off your mask.
SPEAKER_00: May God be gracious to us and bless us.
SPEAKER_00: And make his face shine upon us.
SPEAKER_00: Who can hear the Lord knocking this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Who can hear God knocking?
SPEAKER_00: Church has a challenge to us all.
SPEAKER_00: I'm nothing special.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: I stand here a sinner, saved by grace, and nothing else.
SPEAKER_00: But today I want to be the first.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be the first to stand and say, Lord, here I am.
SPEAKER_00: Here I am.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, when you stand at my door and knock, when you stand at the door of my heart and knock, Lord, I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go again.
SPEAKER_00: Let's walk again.
SPEAKER_00: I want all that you've put in me, Lord, to come out.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to mask it off anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sick of it.
SPEAKER_00: All that you are able to pour in, Lord, let it go.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let it go.
SPEAKER_00: Church, I'm just the messenger this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But I do trust somehow that we're hearing something for the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: And if you feel God has been just stirring and prompting your heart this morning, I'm going to ask you to stand just in response.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be the first to stand this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to pray a prayer over you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to do anything.
SPEAKER_00: It's God that does the work by his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I was going to say if the worship team can come back up, but this is how efficient we are at one church.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just stand in the presence of God this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to open up your hands and do that, let's just create a posture.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, as we come before you this morning, Lord, for every man and woman, boy and girl stood.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, like when Moses saw your face.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would we leave today, Lord, shining for the glory of God?
SPEAKER_00: Father, we would not be able to contain it.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you prevent us from masking it off?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that we would throw away the masks.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, that they're not even be kept for another day.
SPEAKER_00: Father, let your light shine, I pray in the mighty name of Jesus, as we stand before you this morning, Lord, come by your spirit and do what only you can do.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, stir our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, prepare us for the future.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, do something in us today that will cause effect, Lord, in the days and the weeks to come.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, bless us, bless this church, bless your people.
SPEAKER_00: May your face shine upon us in the mighty and wonderful name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: All God's people said.