Family Church Portsmouth

It is vital for every believer to understand that God has invited us into a relationship with Him, not a religion about Him. Is this relationship to be casual? What does God desire from this relationship He offers us. These and other questions are answered in this week’s message from Pastor Andy.

Pastor Steu speaks about Embracing Change this week. We often do not like change, but in many aspects of life it is inevitable in order for us to grow. Ps Steu speak of three kinds of change specifically today, changing course, changing companions and changing conditions. 

He prefaces this with our vision this year, Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV) “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”. The overriding encouragement if for us all to run the race God has set before us with stamina, strength and endurance, our eyes set on Jesus. We need to be people filled with His power.  For an athlete running a race, the challenges faced by running different courses with different companions in different conditions provide added strength. However, we are not competing against each other. Rather, we encourage each other (Hebrews 10:25).

Ps Steu goes on to speak of the strengths we encounter arising from embodying change into our lives and illustrates this with reference to Isaiah 43:17 onwards. The wisdom here is for us not to forget the good things that God has done in our past - it's good to remember such things. But let us not try to live in or keep going back into these things. What God is going to do next is different to what he did before.

Today, Pastor Andy speaks about being fully His. We need to understand what it means to fully belong to God and also what a real Covenant relationship with our Lord God means.

Why do some people get a lot of out of their Christianity and others don't seem to get so much? How can there be one God, who loves everyone equally yet people can have so many different experiences of Him? If one person is experiencing a lot of God, yet another is not, where does this deficit arise from – maybe us….certainly not God! If a deficit is there it is surely to do with our walk with God.  Do we understand as we should? Christianity is not a religion. It's a covenant relationship with the Living God. It's not a casual relationship. Also, it is not a one-way relationship. 

A covenant relationship whether in marriage or business always involves more than one person and cannot be only one way. God’s original design for marriage is the best example here. For a marriage to work at best it must involve two people giving everything they are to the other person - otherwise there will be a deficit in that marriage. In the original design of Christianity, as God made it, He gave Himself fully for us and we are meant to give ourselves fully to him. God gave all for us (His son on a cross), but do we give all to Him or hold back parts of our lives?

If we hold back parts of ourselves from God, He cannot bless those parts. Often we start at the cross, becoming his, spending the rest of our lives slowly giving Him more of ourselves. Ideally, God’s plan is for a place of full exchange when we meet at the cross in relationship with Him. The problem with only giving God bits of our lives is that this affects the experience of the relationship. To be a totally fulfilling relationship we need to surrender all to him. 

In Leviticus 26:11-12 (NIV), God says “I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people”.  God tells the people of the Old Testament many times about His desire to be their God and for them to be His people in relationship with Him. We see God constantly faithful to the people of Israel in the Old Testament, but the people of Israel constantly unfaithful to Him! However, we see God constantly forgiving them and restoring them. God looked to another way to restore His people, a second covenant not dependant on the people’s ability. 

Jeremiah announces this in the book of Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse 31 “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant, a new agreement with my people, the children of Israel and the people of Judah……..It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors because they broke my covenant time and time again, but I was always a husband to them”. God’s plan for us now is no different – for him to be our God and us to be His people. Read 2 Corinthians 6:16 and Hebrews 8:10. However, we cannot blame God for an incomplete Christian experience if we keep parts of ourselves back from Him. Every part of ourselves we bring to God is blessed and given back to us multiplied over. When I am weak, He gives me strength. When I am depressed he gives me joy. For my spirit of heaviness He gives me a garment of praise. This is the beautiful exchange at the cross of Jesus. Let us give ourselves to Him fully. 

Pastor Andy speaks about new growth, especially fitting after a ceremony to anoint Sean and Paula Finch as congregational pastors in Portsmouth, allowing Steuart and Carla Payne to further concentrate on the whole of Family Church in its journey forwards. 

Pastor Andy speaks of a new season, feeling like spring. We are out of winter, lockdown and Covid having been pruned by Father God to promote fruitfulness and strength in new growth. God is doing something new. We could say God is doing the next thing, bringing us from where we were to where we need to be. So we need to be ready. Read Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIV) “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland”. God is doing something new in the whole church and we are asked if we are aware of it, are we spiritually conscious of this new thing? We are now in a time of expectation of increase. We need to ready our house, personally and the whole church. 

In Isaiah 54, The Lord speaks to Israel as His wife, to be restored with many children from being barren. He tells her to sing and then ‘enlarge the place of her tent, stretching to the right and left’…. This is a word for us right now. Sing a song of faith and operate in a way that we believe something new is coming. 2 Kings 4 tells the story of Elisha and the Jar of Oil. The oil only stopped flowing as the last available jar that the woman had gathered was full. The Lord responded to the level of preparation the woman had made. Likewise, we need to make stretching and preparation in order for breakthrough and abundance.  Our church is responding with new positioning so we can say we are ready for God's plans. 

For an athlete, stretching always precedes increase. For a guitar player, strings produce no sound until they are stretched. For a mother, stretching precedes birthing. God is a god of change and often he'll bring change before something new. Stretching precedes abundance or growth. God's character (Colossians 1:13) is that he doesn't want to leave this as we are, but to bring us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the son of His love. He positions us in His kingdom as righteous Sons blameless in His sight. We are forgiven, justified and saved. God is committed to bringing us individually and as a church through seasons of stretch in order to bring us into the miracle zone.  Abraham chose to leave a comfort zone and dared to enter the stretch zone so he could encounter the miracle life intended for him where he ended up with children.  

Let us not stay in our comfort zones. Let us allow God to stretch us and reveal real intentions for our lives. Stretching precedes increase. Jesus endured terrible stretching on the cross for the joy that lay ahead…seeing each of us personally in a loving relationship with God. If we feel as if we are being stretched let us ensure we choose the road of faith, not fear. Let us confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Lord of lords, having an assurance of God with and in us in this life while we wait on the Lord. 

We apologise for truncation of the audio for this message.

Today, Easter Sunday, Pastor Sean shares his story as an introduction to the celebration and true meaning of the Resurrection of Christ. Easter Sunday is also known as Resurrection Sunday. Sean used to seek lots of things in order to seek satisfaction but these never worked.

We can often find ourselves hunting, looking and longing for satisfaction, but left feeling underwhelmed or unsatisfied. Matthew 7:7-8 NIV tells us “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened”. So, scripture is telling us we will find God if we search for Him. Indeed, Jeremiah 29:13 NIV says “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”. But finding does not necessarily mean we shall be satisfied….

Are we satisfied with our lives? Have we been searching or seeking for satisfaction but left feeling empty and unsatisfied? Momentary satisfaction can leave us seeking even more….trying to get a daily fix of purpose or reason for life…..

Pastor Sean then looks at three things in life that we can go looking for in order to gain satisfaction in our lives, and what the resurrection of Jesus means for us regarding these things.

·         Money/Materialism

·         Friendships and relationships

·         Career/Job/Vocation

Sometimes in life we can try to fill our need for satisfaction through any or all of these things. However, life's purpose is not found in what we own, our friends or our career, but is found in Jesus. The key to life is all about letting go and coming to Jesus, only then will we be fully satisfied with the life we are living.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead means we can know God for ourselves, we can have a relationship through Jesus and experience life to the full. Proverbs 19:23 tells us that the Fear of the Lord leads to life, bringing security and protection from harm. When we live a life of abandoned love, surrendered before the awe of God, we will experience abundant life; continual protection and complete satisfaction! We need to welcome him into our lives, “ask and it will be given” the Bible says….

Today, Pastor Andy speaks of the second birth identified in the Bible, a spiritual awakening inside our being which follows our physical birth. From the book of Genesis we know the story of creation and of Adam and Eve who ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thus disobeying God and spiritually separating themselves from Him. 

John 3; 1-7 (NIV) tells the story of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus a religious teacher - Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’ Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’  ‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again.”

This account plainly speaks of how human flesh can only give birth to more human flesh but God’s Holy Spirit can give birth to our inner spirit resulting in God dwelling inside us. This spirit rebirth is often referred to as being ‘born again’, and occurs when we give our lives to Jesus. We then become members of the Kingdom of God. This is made possible not by our actions or good works but is because Jesus died and rose again breaking the Kingdom of Death for ever.  We can then know His life, His peace, His righteousness, His joy and everything else that's His for us in our lives. Why wait when we can invite Jesus into our lives right now, experience relationship with the God who made us and be daily blessed by Him in our lives?

Today Ps Steu speaks about the storms in our lives and how we can trust God during difficult times. What we do when a storm occurs makes all the difference. We need to keep trusting God. The key bible verse for today is the story in Mark 4, 35-40 where Jesus calms the storm when the wind makes the waves come over the side of the boat. The disciples woke Jesus who was sleeping, he immediately rebuked the wind, spoke to the waves and all was calm. He also asked them why they had little faith!

Interestingly, the boat was full of believers, but they seemed not to act as if they believed! Maybe they were more reliant on their own strength and skills to defeat the situation….some of us act like this, some hide, some freak out with great drama. Jesus had the perfect response; he was at perfect peace in this situation – He was trusting in God. We need to act similarly as we face storms in our lives, trusting God is the key to being at peace in all situations. Proverbs 10:25 tells us that the righteous stand firm for ever when storm arise. Knowing who we are in Christ allows us to place our faith in God. Joshua 1:9 tells us to be strong and of good courage, to not be afraid or discouraged for the Lord our God is with us wherever we go. 

Ps Steu asked four questions about storms:-

1. What happens when the storm does not seem to subside – keep trusting, keep praying, make sure we have the whole armour of God as often there are subsidiary spiritual battles to be won. Fix our heart on what is true and honourable and pure and lovely and admirable. 
2. How do we manage when we feel we don’t have enough faith – phone a friend! Let us ensure people in our life journey (our boat) can encourage us. Also, let us call upon the name of the Lord (psalm 116). 
3. When the storm subsides but we are faced with damage, what then – the answer is in 1 Peter 5:10 (NIV) “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast”.
4. What do we do after the storm ends – we place our hope, our faith in Him. We have hope as trusting God keeps us anchored and keeps us calmly harboured and we can experience great peace in the midst of storms. We give thanks and continue to grow in Him. 

Where does our help come from? It comes from the Lord. He is compassionate and it is part of His nature to want to help us in our most helpless situations.

There could be so much to potentially be worried about in these very uncertain times, yet God calls us to choose a better way of living where we choose to trust Him rather than worry. Key things here are

• To be guarding our hearts (Proverbs 4:23)
• To know the worry-free life Jesus encouraged us to have (Matthew 6:25-34)

 We need to purpose to choose trust over worry

• The opposite of worrying is trusting
• Trusting God is also something we need to undertake daily even although this may be counter-cultural (going against how we may have lived or how we were raised)
• This also goes against the ‘storing up’ way of living we may have known and preferred
• Trusting God daily is now a way of living that many are finding themselves in – whether it be for provision, security, health or other areas where they once had more of a self-determined certainly.

This way of living is spoken of, encouraged, even exemplified for us in the Bible as a positive and normal thing

• We walk by faith, not our senses (2 Corinthians 5:7)
• We are instructed not to worry about tomorrow (Matthew 6:34) 
• God gives us daily bread every day (Matthew 6:9-13)

The verses in Exodus 16:2-20 are key to describing and understanding Manna Life

• Manna Life is about trusting Him daily for what we need
• There was one rule – No storing up for tomorrow!
• Some could do it. Others struggled because of fear and unbelief
• This was a planned season of learning and daily provision

The challenging thought is that God is actually training us for what lies ahead, for days we have not seen or known. In such days trusting in someone beyond ourselves is no longer an option. The safest place to be is in a daily trust walk with God. This is a life where we look to His providence for everything our lives may need, knowing that He always knows what we need.

This week Pastor Andy speaks about guarding our hearts. The key verse is Proverbs 4:23 (NIV) “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”. In these verses, the writer of this proverb, Solomon, encourages us to place great importance on protecting our hearts. But does he mean the physical organ or the inner man? The Hebrew word for heart is lēḇ and refers to….

• The inner man, mind, will, heart & understanding
• Our inner parts
• Our mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection and memory
• The seat (throne) of all appetites, emotions and passions and of courage

This heart is not the physical blood pump of a person but rather the central core place, inner person or soul of a person. Consequently it needs protection because it is the part of us that can be most affected or vulnerable to things like fear and anxiety. The heart is the engine room of us which processes things like fear, anxiety and worry, as well as joy, happiness and hope. Solomon calls for us to be a watchman concerning what is trying to get in and what we allow or welcome in. The Devil wants us to have a heart attack by attacking our hearts (John 10:10 & Luke 21:26 refer). Fear is a root causing things like worry, anxiety, depression, hopelessness.

What exactly is meant by ‘guarding’? In Hebrew the word ‘Guard’ is nāṣar meaning

• To guard, watch, watch over
• To preserve and guard from dangers
• To keep, observe, guard with fidelity
• To be a watchman 

We may be living in fear-filled times, but we should have peace-filled hearts. God did not give us fear and so we do not need to let it in (2 Timothy 1:7). God wants us to know His peace and to be kept in “perfect peace”. Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV) states “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You”. We can know peace that comes from Jesus. John 14:27 NKJV states “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”. This is not a worldly peace, which is fickle and temporary, rather God’s peace which is stable and constant. This verse calls us to control the activity happening within our hearts!

John 16:33 (NKJV) says “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”   - This is Jesus saying, “Don’t worry, I got this”!

Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV says “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”. God’s peace is the other doorman that protects the entrance of our lives.

Colossians 3:15 (NKJV) states “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful”. Let (allow) the peace of God not fear from the devil or this world rule in us. Rule = brabeuō  – to be an umpire, decide, determine, direct & control

Ultimately, we can get more peace from spending more time with Jesus Prince of Peace and devoting more time to the Word hearing His thoughts and promises.