SPEAKER_01: The reading today is from Psalm sixty-seven.
SPEAKER_01: Make your face shine upon us to the choir master with stringed instruments, Assam a song.
SPEAKER_01: May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face to shine upon us, Selah, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.
SPEAKER_01: Let the peoples praise you, O God.
SPEAKER_01: Let all the peoples praise you.
SPEAKER_01: Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for your judge the pil the for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.
SPEAKER_01: Say lah.
SPEAKER_01: Let the peoples praise you, O God.
SPEAKER_01: Let all the peoples praise you.
SPEAKER_01: The earth has yielded its increase.
SPEAKER_01: God our God shall bless us.
SPEAKER_01: God shall bless us.
SPEAKER_01: Let all the ends of the earth fear him.
SPEAKER_01: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Mark.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the uh leaders here with uh Peter uh at City Church.
SPEAKER_00: You're very welcome uh with us if you're new or visiting.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you've uh come uh just at the end of our summer series.
SPEAKER_00: We uh go through the book of Psalms uh through the summer, and uh we started at Psalm number one a few years ago, and now we're uh drawing up stumps for a year at Psalm 67.
SPEAKER_00: So you can keep that open with you if you've got a phone or if you need if you need a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there are some down in the box down here.
SPEAKER_00: You can run down and grab one just so that you're looking at the text uh along with us and have that in front uh of you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll be starting a new series uh next week uh called Foundations.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a more topical uh series for five weeks, looking at some of our values as a church, particularly as we start uh what I call the new year.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I know that's maybe weird for uh for some of you, but I'm getting ready to celebrate New Year because I my mind, my ministry mind runs academic year to academic year.
SPEAKER_00: And uh so forgive me if I'm talking to you about the new year and you think that I'm about four months ahead of myself.
SPEAKER_00: Uh people uh I'm sure have said to you, it's kind of a um, is it kind of a mum or a granny phrase?
SPEAKER_00: People will come to you and say, Well, count your blessings.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever counted your blessings?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do some counting uh of uh of your blessings, and I'm gonna show you why it's important to do that uh in in just a second.
SPEAKER_00: But let's pause and count them because actually, if you look at verse one, and uh and Irina uh in her reading did this masterfully, is that there's verse one, uh, may God, which is a prayer, may God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's this little word, selah.
SPEAKER_00: Selah in the Psalms means pause, think about what you've just said, stop, take a moment, take a breath.
SPEAKER_00: That's what selah means.
SPEAKER_00: And so the psalmist, in putting that in, wants us to stop at the end of verse one and just go, okay, hold on.
SPEAKER_00: What's just happened?
SPEAKER_00: I've just prayed that God would bless me.
SPEAKER_00: How has he done that?
SPEAKER_00: I've just prayed that God would be gracious to me, say la.
SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm gonna take a moment and just think, how has he been gracious to me?
SPEAKER_00: How has he been gracious to me this week?
SPEAKER_00: How has he been gracious to me in my life?
SPEAKER_00: How has he blessed me?
SPEAKER_00: How has he made his face to shine upon me?
SPEAKER_00: Say la.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna take a moment and I'm gonna reflect upon that.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the appropriate way to actually begin our reflection on Psalm 67.
SPEAKER_00: It is to, in fact, to count your blessings.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying, verse one, that God would bless us.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we'll step back, say La.
SPEAKER_00: How has he done that?
SPEAKER_00: How's God blessed you?
SPEAKER_00: Has he blessed you?
SPEAKER_00: Uh he's blessed many of us uh materially.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us here uh have jobs or a course of study, and uh in which case you hope to actually have a job that'll pay off the debt that you're currently accruing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you uh have a form of employment.
SPEAKER_00: It might not be the ideal job, but it maybe pays the pays the bills.
SPEAKER_00: And uh maybe God has blessed you with uh a roof over your head again.
SPEAKER_00: It's uh more expensive perhaps than you would prefer, uh, but it's a roof over your head nonetheless.
SPEAKER_00: And uh the Lord has been gracious and kind to to some of you to enable you to uh to purchase your your first homes, and that's uh that's a a context for for ministry now, and you're glad of that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a that's a blessing to you.
SPEAKER_00: What about relationally?
SPEAKER_00: Are you connected with uh with other people?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope you would be, uh at least in some way, if you're coming along here, that other people would uh would at least be getting to know you, that you might be uh uh connected relationally, even romantically to someone, or at least you have uh a good friendship group that you can say, yeah, those people are are my friends.
SPEAKER_00: Uh a blessing to to count and to to mark.
SPEAKER_00: What about spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: Has God been gracious to you uh spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we live in a country which for the moment anyway allows us to uh to practice and to express our uh our religion with a uh a degree of uh of openness.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have have come from countries where that's not the case, uh, where actually to uh to speak openly uh about the Lord Jesus or to identify yourself uh as a Christian is not something that is uh that is done, or indeed can be of uh of risk to your life.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a blessing, it's a kindness, it's a mercy, it's a uh it's an example of God's to graciousness to you that you're here.
SPEAKER_00: It's a blessing to count, to take a moment, say la and to reflect upon.
SPEAKER_00: What about if you're a follower of the Lord Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Has God blessed you as a as a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the the message of Christianity, the message of the gospel, the good news, is that you've been extraordinarily blessed because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You read Paul's uh introduction to his letter to the church at Ephesus, the book of Ephesians, and he opens that letter with saying that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the beloved.
SPEAKER_00: Who's the beloved?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That if you're a Christian, you have been lavishly blessed.
SPEAKER_00: That's the language that he uses.
SPEAKER_00: That he lavishly loved us, sent his son to die for us, to live that perfect life so that we might be robed in those perfections, so that we might have our sin and our shame and our brokenness taken upon him, taken away from us, so that we might be cleansed and made pure and holy and one day have the hope of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Has the Lord God blessed you in the beloved?
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian, the answer should be yes and amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can say amen.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: You can I know that we're I know that we're mostly kind of white and a little bit kind of buttoned up, okay, but you can shout amen if something stirs your heart, that's all right.
SPEAKER_00: God has lavishly blessed us in the beloved.
SPEAKER_00: And what's more, we have the hope of heaven, we have Christ's past work, but now what has he done for us?
SPEAKER_00: He's given us his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: His spirit, as Peter alluded to, making us the temple of God, his presence dwelling with us, is now transforming us every day, making us more and more like the Lord Jesus, walking with us.
SPEAKER_00: That when we're when we're praying and we don't know what to pray, the spirit is interceding for us with groans too deep for words.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus, has the Lord blessed you?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yes and amen.
SPEAKER_00: Lavishly, wonderfully, you have been blessed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Psalm, that's what the first verse of Psalm 67 is driving at.
SPEAKER_00: That God has blessed his people and that he has done so in the context of their relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: That God blesses his people in the context of drawing them to himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's not like some divine vending machine where he just kind of spits out some goodies.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, No, come into relationship with me, and that will be a bless a relationship of blessing and of goodness and of grace.
SPEAKER_00: We know that this is the context of relationship because verse one is actually an allusion, and some of you may have picked up on it, it's an allusion to a prayer, a blessing that is prayed back in the book of Numbers, at the very start of the Bible, called the Aaronic Blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Not the ironic blessing.
SPEAKER_00: There's no Alana Morissette here.
SPEAKER_00: It's not ironic, it's Aaronic.
SPEAKER_00: That is, it's Aaron's blessing.
SPEAKER_00: It's the priestly blessing of the people.
SPEAKER_00: And it comes from Numbers chapter six.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it for you.
SPEAKER_00: So the full ironic blessing is this: the Lord bless you and keep you.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.
SPEAKER_00: That is the ironic blessing.
SPEAKER_00: That in the context of a relationship with God, we can now speak over the people of God this blessing.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord bless you, keep you, give you peace, make his face to shine upon you, be gracious to you.
SPEAKER_00: And Psalm 67 picks up that language and says, Yeah, I'm gonna pray that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great prayer.
SPEAKER_00: God has promised in numbers that he will bless his people.
SPEAKER_00: And so you want to know what to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Pray that.
SPEAKER_00: Pray in line with what God's promised.
SPEAKER_00: God promised to bless his people through that blessing, through that relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And so the psalmist in Psalm 67 goes, I'm gonna ask God to do that, because he said he would.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great way to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Pray in terms of what God has already promised to do.
SPEAKER_00: You know it's gonna be answered.
SPEAKER_00: So, number six in Psalm 67 are a prayer of the people to God that God would bless us.
SPEAKER_00: You and I, the people of God, those who are following and trusting in the Lord Jesus, that we would know His sustaining, His goodness, His protection, His steadfast love and His grace.
SPEAKER_00: He's done that for us individually as our hearts turn in repentance and faith to the Lord Jesus, and he has done that for us all collectively as the church.
SPEAKER_00: He is gracious and kind to us.
SPEAKER_00: He's blessed us in City Church, which we reflect on right at the end of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: These last nine years we're about to celebrate our ninth birthday and go into our tenth year.
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe that?
SPEAKER_00: He has been gracious to us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're here this morning and you're not a follower of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You're still just exploring and looking in on these things.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of being blessed, of having peace, of being shown grace and mercy, of shame removed and and sin taken away sounds attractive, as it should in the context of a relationship with a God who is full of graciousness and goodness and love.
SPEAKER_00: That is what is offered in Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Lord Jesus offers us.
SPEAKER_00: But and this is an important butt.
SPEAKER_00: Why does God bless us?
SPEAKER_00: Why does God make his face to shine upon us?
SPEAKER_00: Why is God gracious to us?
SPEAKER_00: What is the purpose of God's lavish kindness to you individually and to us all corporately in the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: What is the purpose for which God has given you relationships?
SPEAKER_00: What is the purpose for which God has given you material blessing?
SPEAKER_00: What is the purpose for which God allows you and has put you in a country that allows you to express your faith with a degree of openness?
SPEAKER_00: Why has he blessed you?
SPEAKER_00: That's what this psalm wants to bring us to.
SPEAKER_00: So after we've paused and reflected at the end of verse one, we get the answer at the start of verse two.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it with me.
SPEAKER_00: Say laugh that, so that, so it's linking with verse one, so that your way may be known on the earth, your saving power among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Why has God blessed you?
SPEAKER_00: Why has God blessed City Church?
SPEAKER_00: Why is God currently blessing you and City Church?
SPEAKER_00: If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus, why?
SPEAKER_00: What is the purpose for which God has laid those blessings at your door that your way, O God, might be made known.
SPEAKER_00: Where?
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere, the ends of the earth, in every nation, that your saving power may be made known among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Folks, this is this is huge.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we why we sang our first song.
SPEAKER_00: May the peoples praise you.
SPEAKER_00: May the nations be glad.
SPEAKER_00: God has blessed you in Jesus, has blessed you with everything that you have and are and own for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the purpose?
SPEAKER_00: That you and we would be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: You have been blessed to be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Why has God blessed City Church?
SPEAKER_00: So that we might bless others to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And this was always the way that it was set up to be.
SPEAKER_00: This is what God laid down right at the start of the Bible with his promises, the set of promises that he makes to a man called Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham is the uh the great humanity restart button after the the fall, you know, uh Adam and Eve in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Adam or Abraham is the restart.
SPEAKER_00: It's God coming to a man who had no goodness in himself.
SPEAKER_00: He was 70 years old and still living with his mom and dad.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and you don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: I know rent's expensive, but don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: And God comes to him and says, Abraham, I'm gonna bless you, I'm gonna make promises to you.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go to a land that I'm gonna show you, and I'm gonna give it to you as a possession, I'm gonna make you a great people.
SPEAKER_00: And then the third thing that he says is that, and through you all the nations of the world will be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: God's doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Abraham, I'm gonna bless you, I'm gonna give you land, I'm gonna give you offspring, I'm gonna give you a people, I'm gonna make you a great nation, and through you, you're gonna bless the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, you run that through to the New Testament, to Paul's letter to the Galatians, and what you see is actually the blessing par excellence that comes through Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: It's not geopolitical, it's not ethnic, it's spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: It's that the offspring of Abraham that blesses the whole world is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And to be counted as offspring of Abraham is to put our faith in the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But we are blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: To be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: People mistakenly think perhaps that blessings land on our laps.
SPEAKER_00: No, they don't.
SPEAKER_00: Blessings flow through our hands.
SPEAKER_00: They don't land on our laps, they flow through our hands.
SPEAKER_00: We are blessed to be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's great purpose in the world, and this is the mission of the church, not just our church, but every church, that we would be a blessing to the nations and helping them see the greatness of what God has done, that we ourselves would know the blessing of God and his purpose in saving us, and then would go then with that message to the ends of the earth and to the peoples.
SPEAKER_00: Why does God want to do this?
SPEAKER_00: What does God want for the nations?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's four things in this, Sam, that God wants the nations to express.
SPEAKER_00: The first is that God wants the nations of the world, represented uh here at City Church, to know him.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing.
SPEAKER_00: Verse two, that your way may be known on the earth, your saving power among all the nations, that they would know who he is and what he's done, that they would hear the name of Jesus in their own language, in their own tongue, and come to know him.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing that God wants for the nations is that they might praise him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse three.
SPEAKER_00: So know among the earth, verse three, let the peoples do what?
SPEAKER_00: Praise you, oh God.
SPEAKER_00: Let all the peoples praise you.
SPEAKER_00: So, in knowing God, that they would not just have it as a as an intellectual knowledge, okay.
SPEAKER_00: I've gone, I've gone to this place, and now these people know the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, that that knowledge would stir in them a renewed and transformed heart, that they would turn then and and give him praise, that they would offer him their lives rather than idols, rather than false gods, that they would turn to him, that he would be known and then praised among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we say we sing this.
SPEAKER_00: May the peoples praise you.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing that God wants for the nations, wants the nations to know him, to praise him.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, for the nations to be glad in him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
SPEAKER_00: For you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Let the nations be glad.
SPEAKER_00: That's another way of talking about gladness.
SPEAKER_00: What would it be mean?
SPEAKER_00: What would it mean to be glad in God?
SPEAKER_00: We don't normally speak in those sorts of terms, but we do talk in terms of enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: God wants the nations, the peoples of the world, to enjoy him, to delight in him, to find that he is the source of their joy and rejoicing and gladness.
SPEAKER_00: So he wants the nations to know him, to praise him, to be glad in him, that is, to enjoy him.
SPEAKER_00: And fourthly, he wants the nations to fear him.
SPEAKER_00: That's how the psalmist concludes.
SPEAKER_00: God shall bless us, let all the ends of the earth fear him.
SPEAKER_00: Now we think of fear and we think of uh we think of terror uh and uh and and shrinking back and hiding like a uh like like a horror movie.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what the Bible means by uh by fear in this context.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not it's not fear and sense of terror, it's fear as in awe to stand in overwhelming awe that that almost makes you forget yourself because you're so enraptured by what you have seen.
SPEAKER_00: It's expressed in in you see this in in various um parts of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You see they uh the prophet Isaiah falling down in the in the temple when he sees the vision of the of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He's in awe and he's become aware of his own sin.
SPEAKER_00: You see John in his apocalypse in the book of Revelation falling down when he sees an angel because he's just so overwhelmed by it.
SPEAKER_00: It's that sort of awe.
SPEAKER_00: That is what God wants.
SPEAKER_00: From the nations that they would truly see our world does not stand in awe of the God of the Bible, stand in derision, mockery of the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And yet our task, the reason why we've been blessed is we might show the infinite magnitude of the God who's blessed us.
SPEAKER_00: Before we continue, it's worth noting that these four things, knowing God, praising Him, enjoying Him, being glad in Him, and standing in awe of Him, fearing Him, those are actually the four ways that you might grow as a disciple of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I really want to grow in my faith.
SPEAKER_00: Well, those are those are four avenues to explore.
SPEAKER_00: Your knowledge of God, your praising of him, your enjoyment of him, your standing in awe, your fearing of him.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's worth actually reflecting upon of those four.
SPEAKER_00: Which one's impacting you right now?
SPEAKER_00: Which one is the is the Holy Spirit kind of pressing into your heart?
SPEAKER_00: Is it is it knowledge of God?
SPEAKER_00: Is it actually I I don't really feel like I know very much.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I need to kind of step back and uh and learn what the God of the Bible is like.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I need to uh to press into to that.
SPEAKER_00: I need to be more hungry about discovering what he's he's like.
SPEAKER_00: If that's you, then we can offer you resources to to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever level and time investment you want to you want to put in.
SPEAKER_00: And seriously, fire me an email.
SPEAKER_00: I'll uh I'll send you a bunch of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to to know God better.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the one that the spirit is pressing upon you right now is is this idea of uh of praising him.
SPEAKER_00: You're asking, is my is my life one of delight and worship for who he is and and what he's done.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just want it for the nations, want it for yourself, and then allow that uh that to overflow from from your heart to others.
SPEAKER_00: Those two things, uh knowledge and praising, uh, are linked.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they should be linked.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're just getting more information about God and not turning that into what we might call theological reflection, that is heart work, how does this change our heart?
SPEAKER_00: Then you've not done the knowing right.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're just doing the praising without the knowing, then who's to say what you're praising?
SPEAKER_00: And are you praising in the uh in the in a way that that honors God?
SPEAKER_00: So those two things go hand in hand.
SPEAKER_00: What about enjoying God?
SPEAKER_00: When you when you do something, do you enjoy the Father's kindness?
SPEAKER_00: Tim Chester wrote a book called Enjoying God.
SPEAKER_00: I would commend it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the things that that he picks up on are this.
SPEAKER_00: So some of the ways to enjoy God is, you know, if you are if you are doing something pleasurable, you're out for uh you know a nice meal, or you're doing the the sport or the hobby that you that you love, are there reflexive moments where you point upward again and think, God, God has been so kind in allowing me to do this and giving me the ability to do it, and allowing me to enjoy this view?
SPEAKER_00: Not this view, I mean this view is fine, but it's mostly it's mostly lights, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh but having that kind of reflexive heart gets so kind of locked into the moment rather than looking upward.
SPEAKER_00: When you when you fail, when you sin, when you fall, have you ever considered that that's an opportunity for enjoyment?
SPEAKER_00: That that's an opportunity, yes, to repent and to turn from your sin.
SPEAKER_00: But repentance is such a good thing because the thing that that leads you into is enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: It allows you to enjoy the grace of the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever failed and sinned and thought, you know, I need to turn back to Him and to enjoy again His grace and His finished work for me?
SPEAKER_00: Or when you're in a season of weariness, of trial, of groaning, do you know that that's a time for enjoyment?
SPEAKER_00: That you can be glad in what?
SPEAKER_00: In the spirit's comfort and in the Spirit's hope that He's given you for the future.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we all need to press into gladness more.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that would probably uh help fill our praise bucket as well and allow that to overflow.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're sitting here and thinking, well, I don't really fear God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Well, does the awe of who he is compel you and shape the decisions that you are making?
SPEAKER_00: Are you making decisions about your life, about your relationships, about your economics, in light of the overwhelming majesty of God and his call on your life?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you making decisions out of fear for the circumstances around you and the relationships around you?
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not fear or not fear, right?
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes it's am I fearing the right thing?
SPEAKER_00: Am I compelled, in awe, controlled, uh, overwhelmed by who God is, or am I overwhelmed and controlled by the situation of the people around me?
SPEAKER_00: But are they influencing the decisions that I'm making about my life?
SPEAKER_00: You see, knowledge of God, praise of him, enjoyment of him, fear of him.
SPEAKER_00: These are discipleship pathways.
SPEAKER_00: These are ways that we grow as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And as we grow in them, we then exemplify and call people to those four things.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God wants from the nations, not just from the nations, he wants it for the nations, because he knows that it is good for all of us to know him, praise him, to delight in him, and to fear him.
SPEAKER_00: Why though?
SPEAKER_00: Why does God want the nations to know, praise, rejoice, and fear him?
SPEAKER_00: Let's just do two reasons right now, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Because we could be here for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: The two reasons that we can draw from this psalm, the first one is that, well, because God is the God of the whole earth.
SPEAKER_00: Why does God want all of the nations and to the ends of the earth to know him and to praise him, to be glad of him or in him?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because he is their God.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not a Western religion.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is a global religion.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not about the worship of a parochial deity for our for our own kind of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant domain.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Lord of all.
SPEAKER_00: And all will buy their knee to him.
SPEAKER_00: And to honor God is to honor him.
SPEAKER_00: To not honor him is to not honor God.
SPEAKER_00: That is what Jesus says in John chapter 5, which we looked at this last year in the last academic year.
SPEAKER_00: He says that if you want to honor the Father, you must honor the Son whom he sent.
SPEAKER_00: And so we do not believe that all religions are just different paths up one mountain, or uh all just kind of groping on this uh this uh this elephant, you know, the the the the the parable of the blind man kind of feeling this elephant, and some people say, Oh, it's a uh you know it's a it's a tree, and they're holding on the leg, no, it's a rope, and he's got the tail.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, the elephant has spoken.
SPEAKER_00: The elephant says, No, I'm an elephant.
SPEAKER_00: That removes all doubt.
SPEAKER_00: God is the Lord of all.
SPEAKER_00: All religions are not the same.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is clear on that.
SPEAKER_00: All who seek to honor God must honor the Son whom he has sent.
SPEAKER_00: God is the God of all.
SPEAKER_00: The second reason from this psalm is that God is the only equitable judge.
SPEAKER_00: You see that in verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for the for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth.
SPEAKER_00: God is the only fair judge of all.
SPEAKER_00: No bribe, no merit, no good work, no, no inside track into his good favor.
SPEAKER_00: He is the only impartial judge for the problem that we all have.
SPEAKER_00: The problem of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: That is, you want to know what sin is sin is self-love, that we love ourselves more than the God who made us.
SPEAKER_00: And God will be just with all of us.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he will.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot bribe, persuade, or blackmail, or conjole him into showing favor.
SPEAKER_00: He offers one solution, but he offers it to all people through the death of his son.
SPEAKER_00: This is the inclusivity of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: You might even listen to the first, the first point where I'm talking about Jesus is the only way.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father except by me.
SPEAKER_00: And people instinctively might sit here and go, that's terribly.
SPEAKER_00: How can you say this is intolerant and exclusive?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: But Christianity is so inclusive.
SPEAKER_00: Because it says that the only way is through Jesus, but that that way is open to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of socioeconomic background, regardless of education or standing in the community, or sexuality, or anything else.
SPEAKER_00: The only way is is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way that is open for everyone on this world.
SPEAKER_00: And so the God of the whole earth, who is the judge of all nations, offers freely his son to all.
SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, displays what?
SPEAKER_00: His grace.
SPEAKER_00: May God be gracious, verse one.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he has supremely in his son, the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To who?
SPEAKER_00: To all nations, to everyone sitting here, and to everyone in our city, to everyone on this land, and everyone on this planet.
SPEAKER_00: He is the gracious one, lavishly loving and worthy of our praise, who gladdens our hearts and leaves us in awe of what he has done and in what he is doing.
SPEAKER_00: That is what God wants for the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That is why he wants it.
SPEAKER_00: This blessing of God to us is amazing news, but it must be shared.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, we're blessed to be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Blessings don't land on our lap, they flow through our hands.
SPEAKER_00: We are to give and to go with the good news of who God is and what he has done for everyone.
SPEAKER_00: That there is hope for the weary soul, that there is life for those who are faltering and failing, that there can be joy for the sorrowful.
SPEAKER_00: We go with that news.
SPEAKER_00: That is why the the risen Lord Jesus, and we'll actually look at this in more detail next week.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna not gonna kind of go into it now.
SPEAKER_00: Uh He comes to the disciples in all of his risen glory, and he says to them all, he says, Go get out of here, go, go and make disciples, go and tell them about me.
SPEAKER_00: I've blessed you.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's your turn.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's time for you to go and to be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Go and teach them and teach them all, teach them to know me.
SPEAKER_00: And in knowing me, they'll turn and praise me and be glad in me.
SPEAKER_00: And their hearts will be overwhelmed by joy and awe.
SPEAKER_00: Teach them to know my grace in every aspect of their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And just as Jesus commissioned them, so he commissions us.
SPEAKER_00: That's why our mission as a church, how can our mission be summarized?
SPEAKER_00: Connect, grow, serve, go.
SPEAKER_00: We exist to connect people to Jesus that they might grow to spiritual maturity, serve the community, and go to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's the mission of City Church.
SPEAKER_00: The blessings that we have don't sit on our laps.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus sends out the disciples and he sends us as his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And what's more, the same Jesus, the same Lord who commissions us and sends us out, equips us and resources us for that work.
SPEAKER_00: So verse 6 of Psalm 67.
SPEAKER_00: The earth has yielded its increase, and God, our God, shall bless us.
SPEAKER_00: God has blessed his people materially and spiritually to be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why there's this harvest language in verse 6 that it's spiritual blessings and he's resourcing them materially as well.
SPEAKER_00: Folks, you can give your wealth to no greater cause than the cause of saying Jesus be made known.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh we could go so far as to say that that is the reason why God is blessing you materially.
SPEAKER_00: And how you use your home that you're able to just about pay the rent for or the mortgage on.
SPEAKER_00: How your giving is being used.
SPEAKER_00: It's all for the extension and the glory of his kingdom, and the praise of his name.
SPEAKER_00: It's the reason why you have what you have.
SPEAKER_00: So God blesses us both in our going and in our giving.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not particularly familiar with City Church.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is your first week.
SPEAKER_00: I know it is for some of you visiting and coming through, and you're very welcome.
SPEAKER_00: How is how's God blessed us?
SPEAKER_00: How's God been kind to us?
SPEAKER_00: Well, like I said at the start, we're nine years old in two weeks' time.
SPEAKER_00: Folks, that ain't nothing.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of Sundays, particularly in the summer, when we were looking out.
SPEAKER_00: Four, five, six people singing to a CD or to a Spotify playlist.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen so many people come through our family and they've blessed us, they've enriched us, and then the Lord has moved them on and sent them to far-flung parts of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Some have uh gone back home, some have gone on into ministry in Africa, in South America, lots of people back to Brazil, lots of people back to uh the states in North America.
SPEAKER_00: Since then and mostly in this last year, God has has blessed us lavishly in terms of materially.
SPEAKER_00: We've we've we've we've we've just about doubled in in size since we moved here.
SPEAKER_00: What a provision this place has been.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's there's stuff that doesn't quite work right, and it's a little bit hard to find.
SPEAKER_00: Well done for finding it.
SPEAKER_00: If the if you're new, hopefully you saw the the sign, and maybe even somebody directed you in here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but if you remember where we were last and the paint was chipping off the off the walls, and we didn't quite know what we were coming into and all, we'd say, oh gosh, this is this has been such a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: We've been a year, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And it's been so good.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the real blessings over this last year is is how much we've diversified in terms of uh in terms of ethnicity.
SPEAKER_00: We have so many uh other people from other parts of the world coming uh coming to to worship with us and alongside us.
SPEAKER_00: And I I really look forward to to seeing how we can bring that diversity and vibrancy to to bear in our uh in our worship life, both on a Sunday morning and and in and in uh midweek and all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: You guys, many of you continue to to serve and to give of yourselves on a on a Sunday morning or through the week, and the various things that we that we that we need in order to make Sunday happen, you enrich the uh the body and our life together.
SPEAKER_00: You are uh a blessing to one another and uh and to us who lead the church, for which we are we're so grateful.
SPEAKER_00: Financially, our giving continues to to slowly uh trend towards greater health.
SPEAKER_00: We're not yet financially self-sustaining.
SPEAKER_00: We still have to receive the blessing of partner churches, uh, but we are uh we're going in the in the right direction, and that's a blessing to stop and to count and to thank God for, and then to work out well, how can we be generous with what God has given us?
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I want us over these next weeks to uh as we start this new academic year to also be thinking, well, how can how can City be a blessing?
SPEAKER_00: God has blessed us, He has been kind to us, He is continuing to be faithful and gracious to us, but if they're flowing through our hands and not just sitting on our laps, how can we then be a blessing?
SPEAKER_00: As we enter into our 10th year as a church, it will also be the year that we uh give birth to uh Redeemer and send them out in 2023.
SPEAKER_00: Easter Sunday is the date that is uh is set for them to be sent off and to launch a new church in the south of the city.
SPEAKER_00: So we pray for uh for Duncan and for Becky and for the for the launch team.
SPEAKER_00: Our weekend away this coming March.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know what a weekend away, go away.
SPEAKER_00: As a child, we have a holiday together for a weekend uh uh every March, and they this that whole trip will be centered around us celebrating God's goodness to us in sending them out.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying over them, praising God, commissioning them to go.
SPEAKER_00: What a great thing it is that God has been kind to us for nearly a decade, and now we stand at the point where we get to be a blessing and send out people to be another expression of the body of Christ in another part of the city that that desperately needs that that witness.
SPEAKER_00: So we continue to ask you all to consider well, how can I be a blessing to that, either in my giving or in my going?
SPEAKER_00: Not trying to get rid of you, but maybe some of you should go.
SPEAKER_00: It's not too late.
SPEAKER_00: What else?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we've we've grown a lot, we've nearly doubled over the last year, but you know what?
SPEAKER_00: We're not we're not a mega church with a big staff team.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord willing, our staff team will uh we're Will grow over the uh over the coming months, but we are a we're a people par church.
SPEAKER_00: We're fueled by by you guys.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that because that means that it's not just all on me either to to do it, but it's not just all on my gifting in terms of doing new things, of innovating new ministry areas and ways of reaching other parts of the community.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much that we're not doing.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that you maybe you sit here and you think, well, they're not doing X ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So clearly, Mark and the other leaders, they don't care about it.
SPEAKER_00: No, that's that's not true.
SPEAKER_00: We just have limited capacity and limited gifting.
SPEAKER_00: You stay here for any length of time, you know that you know I have limited gifting.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're passionate about a particular area and it fits in our mission of connect, grow, serve, go, and you want to explore what it would be like to innovate that and to be a blessing to others.
SPEAKER_00: I am I'm your number one champion.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have that conversation.
SPEAKER_00: We might turn around and go, well, we want to change that, or it's not it's not quite where our mission is, but we want to have that conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Just because stuff isn't happening doesn't mean that I don't care about it.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that we don't care about it.
SPEAKER_00: We're a people-driven church, and all of you have the spirit working in your life, empowering you.
SPEAKER_00: You've all been gifted, you all have talents and skills and gifts that he has equipped you with that are extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to see them utilized in the context of the church so that we might be a blessing to our city.
SPEAKER_00: Outside of us, we seek to give and be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, we're blessed by other church partnerships like Foothill Church in LA.
SPEAKER_00: We had Chris Lewis preaching for us when I was on sabbatical, or Livingstones Church at Mark Sythe preaching for us when I was on sabbatical.
SPEAKER_00: Those churches walk beside us, they support us financially.
SPEAKER_00: But then it flows through us as well because we get to be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Our internal giving then goes to support, as we prayed for Johnny and Julie Pollock at Calvary Church Loch Ray, where Duncan is today preaching.
SPEAKER_00: It's a small but growing, fastly growing church in Loch Ray, about 20 minutes outside of Galway, to be a blessing to them.
SPEAKER_00: 1% of our internal giving uh goes to our church planting partners at the AXE 29 network.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, particularly uh right now, last year and this coming year, our our 1% giving goes to support church planting in Spain.
SPEAKER_00: In the south of Spain.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to do a mission trip?
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, but there is such a need for church planting in the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal.
SPEAKER_00: And we're just beginning to develop those partnerships with the guys in Axe 29 in Spain.
SPEAKER_00: I met with them uh back in May uh again when I was out there on sabbatical.
SPEAKER_00: And I really I'd love to explore with you guys how we can take this forward.
SPEAKER_00: There's more to go on about.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe over our foundations series over the next five weeks, I want to to bring some more of my heart uh for the church into uh into some of these sermons on a Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: But the the way that you really partner with us, if you're with us, attending with us, become a member.
SPEAKER_00: Become a member and and and join our next members meeting on the on the 31st of this month.
SPEAKER_00: You go to citychurch.membership.
SPEAKER_00: You see what it means to be a member, what we believe.
SPEAKER_00: We then have a conversation uh with you about that.
SPEAKER_00: And then, Lord willing, when you're a member, we we open it all up because one of the things that we believe as leaders, myself, Peter, Ben, Duncan, is we want to be transparent in our leadership.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be accountable.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not perfect, I don't have all the answers, I don't have all of the skills.
SPEAKER_00: I do this reasonably well, and that's kind of it.
SPEAKER_00: You want to know what I am in the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: I'm a stomach.
SPEAKER_00: I just take in stuff and I seek to nourish the body.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the brain of the body of Christ, I'm the gut.
SPEAKER_00: That's me.
SPEAKER_00: But there are other parts of the body here.
SPEAKER_00: Come and partner with us.