Seeking God's will and direction

Transcript (Auto-generated)

Good morning everyone. How are we this morning? Are we going well? Is it joyful to be here? I'd say it would be. Just reflecting on one of the lines from one of the songs, we have every reason to praise the Lord and we do indeed, we certainly do. Could I get you to hold that for me please? Thank you. If you want to open your word up today, we're going to be speaking and having a look at Psalm 139, eventually we'll get there just a bit of a prelim as David said. We're entering into a season of prayer and a season of prayer that is focusing on what has God asking us to do as a church and where we're going and what are some of the things he would like us to do. We believe that consensus comes through prayer. That as all God's people praying together, praying specifically and in a specific way, asking God to show and reveal, then that's what happens. Then we get to the end of March where we've penciled in a special members meeting. Just because it's penciled in doesn't mean we'll do it because we need to hear what God is saying before we get to that meeting. What a challenge. That's exciting isn't it? Sharing each other at home groups, talking about it at the discipleship groups, sharing what God has laid on your heart. So exciting. Let's pray about that Lord. We thank you Father that Lord, we have every reason to praise your name. Well when we come before you Lord, it's with humble hearts that we seek you. And Lord as we open your word today we pray that you'll speak to us Lord as the words of the message come forward Lord. The words that Lord you've prepared Father pray, help us to receive them, be challenged by them. Lord to even Lord think what can I do Father that will glorify you even more. Father thank you for each person who's gathering with us and gathering at home as well. Lord just to participate in this time with you. Lord it's a true privilege and joy. Lord we thank you, we thank some praise for who you are and your name. Amen. I've just noticed I'm wearing a headset. So Dougie has a headset, Dougie's hands are here, Dougie is free. I'm sure you agree that prayer is a constant necessity in our lives and because we're in this timeline we're going to say Lord we need to hear from you. We're not demanding from God, we're just patiently waiting in his presence and we're going to go before that but it's predicated by prayer and if we really think prayer is important as a part of who we are then we as a pastoral team as a leadership team we're encouraging you, we're imploring with you to participate in this prayer time with us. To really spend time, take a few minutes a day as long as you want, don't make it a tick and flick as we talked about previously but to really make an opportunity to say Lord I'm here for you, what are you saying? Some, Jason made reference before about just having the little pinky and all the little pinkies and the fingers that go together. Perhaps prayer is that fist and I've got a way of looking at prayer this morning that I asked that you might indulge me somewhat. So when we reflect and recap we've learnt in the last three weeks that Jesus values prayer, that we learnt the Lord's prayer and what it means in those way we've divided it up and the challenge is there. We understand that prayer is a key element of discipleship growth. You need to grow as disciples and so we need to be able to pray in all different ways we pray and all different understandings of faith when we pray but we're still called to pray and grow in that. But the question we have is what's next? What's next for our church? We've got some options on the table. We've had ever since it been here for the last 11 months, it's almost 12 months. 11 months I've heard talk of the toilets. We need better toilets, we need more toilets and let's just build a set of toilets and then they've got people thinking well if we do that what else has to happen and there's something else and they've got us thinking and praying about that and so we've come up with this sort of you know in our own humanity we've got well let's build a bigger place to meet and a building and let toilets be incorporated in that. But if we have so many people here like we hate to make more room for seats that's why some of you are a little bit squashed but you know like do we need to go to two services? Do we need to do a church plant? Like Bill Mears just busting up there. Yeah we do some work in and on what that would look like out that way. You know there's all sorts of things but they're not we're not limited to those so I want to encourage you not just to pray Lord let us know if we want to do a church plant. Lord let us know this let us know. We want to make sure and we encourage you to do that to be open to what God is leading. That is what we put together our prayer booklet. It's going to be one of these every week. Church Council went through this discipline leading up to the vision time we spent in retreat and as we're praying and thinking about that God laid certain things in our heart and we came up with and we developed more our enduring mission statement of committee to growing in Christ committed to going for Christ into being well our goal is to be an intergenerational church we have four values that feed into that and we have a value statement which is Kabbaltia Baptist is an intergenerational church that aspires to honour our Heavenly Father by being informed by his word transformed by spirit be together in community and reaching out for Jesus and our verse is beautiful that is beautiful really took my eye this morning that this is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples John 15 eight so it's all part of the life of the church it's great to have these things up there but we don't just wear them we want to badge to say who you are be a security guard we want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ take those things on board and pray and that's my encouragement I challenged you it's great joy that we come to this part because it's just I reckon God's going to reap so much fruit I really do and so have a look at that now reason why we've got it tearing off is because we want to hear from you want to hear what God is laying in your heart they've even got little scissors there for those who have dexterity of fingers have scissors that go through there and then cut it off and then put it into the offering boxes or give it to pastor Dave past the little myself that we may get them together and pray also see what God is saying pretty exciting a you know that one of the hard parts about this is not to just let it to be for someone else don't just let it to be or someone's much better than this they pray better than me God speaks to each person all through the history of the Bible they have opportunities whereas a nation they needed to know God's direction and so they all prayed together and sought God as the prophets did they sat individually and said Lord what do you want for the nation heavenly Father and he said this is what I want you to do so there's that challenge for us so having done understanding that I thought we might do is just as a bit of a way of getting our attention is we might put on our prayer goggles now if we put on prayer goggles there's an old saying in Australian mythology that you only look like a fool if your mates don't help you so do I have some mates that will wear goggles with me Matt I don't fucking throw that far and see the stage my goggles on their prayer goggles they don't see that far ahead any other mates here there's one Dean Bird okay oh thank you sir come on down Elliot grab a pair quick now you see things differently straight away don't you they'm pardon one pair left well it's a mates thing certainly here you go you can be my mate Bernadette you can wear a pair of goggles you got to wear them now you will nominate yourself that's all I've got at the moment wearing prayer goggles wearing prayer goggles really difficult to walk around in these a couple of things I noticed about when you put goggles on first of all it eliminates it eliminates distractions it eliminates distractions when you put these on there's sort of a view that sort of happens around here so the peripheral isn't affected so it keeps you to maintain your focus so when we're praying we're praying the focus into Jesus we're praying what God wants us to do we're trying to get rid of the things that we think we know the things that are cramming in on us and just focus on Jesus it protects us from foreign objects impairing our spiritual eyesight so it hit from when our prayer goggles on we're saying Lord what do you want us to do how do you want to and get rid of all the things that could impair our spiritual eyesight because we take a certain humanity we take a certain bias into prayer I believe we take a certain bias into church we come thinking and expecting it to fit our way we come in with a thing called consumerism where people have applied what they use in the shops to looking at paces of faith the chairs aren't comfortable the chairs are too close the air conditioning is not hot enough you've got air conditioning the there's the car parks too far away all those things can be a bias on us so when we come into pray put the things you've experienced away for a while and ask God what do you want us to do so when we pray we have our prayer goggles on okay everyone do that with me prayer goggles on I don't see everyone prayer goggles on Dave Nixon prayer goggles on thank you I know a name prayer go Mary Rosemary prayer goggles on Lacey prayer goggles on okay Michael prayer goggles on I can see Michael yeah we've got both Michaels over there is your goggles fogging up yet okay because when we're going to prayer goggles on our eyes are only for Jesus our eyes are only for Jesus so when we have our eyes only for Jesus we hear what Jesus is saying so it's almost like a preparatory thing some people have a place to go and pray where they really spend their quiet time a pastor we know has a milk crate that he puts up in his in the corner of his garage he pulls his milk crate out from the floor and he sits on his milk crate and that's his quiet time spot other people do it in their car they listen to spiritual songs and the way to work and they pray and they spend time with God we're going to give you some challenges as we go through have what that means so with our spiritual goggles on we're committed we're called to commitment and powerful prayer we want to be powerful prayers we want to be a church of prayer it's a journey of great joy of great privilege and a great challenge because I believe God will even change the way you think about prayer he might have been take some of your old habits out and replace them with new disciplines he might say to you that this is a different way that I want you to have you ever thought of this before and so he will take those things and he'll bring them in George and Warren wrote a book called breaking church growth barriers now some may think well it's a when we write this book it's about making this bigger as a church it's also about the internal aspect of church about how we are believers and how we grow spiritually and you can see on the screen I'll read it through with you when you learn to pray in such a way to listen you will not only find out what God wants to be done but you begin to learn by whom the how the when and when you're going when you're doing God's work in God's time then you are God's person until you are aware of God's marching orders sorry we are aware of God's marching orders activities are vain and foolish God needs to preempt everything God needs to go before us God needs to say to us this is what I want you to do in discipline follow me and so with great joy meet together on Sunday who had no trouble getting here today who just thought this was awesome let's get to church who was 50 50 you don't have put your hand up by not putting your hand up by no who's here under sufferance from the Holy Spirit not from their spouse or their parents when we learn to know what God's marching orders are then we know how to follow God and that's prayer is about that's why prayer goggles on this whether he was the focus the protectors from things around us because we're aware of God's marching orders it opens our hearts and acknowledge him it opens our hearts and acknowledges him we have an attitude of reverence we learned that in the Lord's prayer the first thing we pray is not when Jesus said this I want you to pray he gave us some instructions and he didn't say ask first he said our Father in heaven hello be thy name first thing straight up to God so our whole understanding is that we see who he is and we have an attitude of reverence before him knowing that we haven't got the answers only he's got the answers and we're excited about what that means in James four eight talks about personal growth with God being personal with God come near to God and he will come near to you wash your hands your sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded that's a great admission in there isn't there it's a great admonishment that says hang on get yourself right with me draw near to me certainly I'm not going to turn your way but while you're coming deal with the stuff in your life and this is this first week is about is about focusing on God and our relationship with him and there's some prayer points that you'll come across and you can see them on your sheet and I'll talk about them in a moment that really gets us to reflect what God is saying to our hearts so let's have a look at Psalm 139 one to three you have searched me Lord and you know me you know when I sit down and when I rise you perceive my thoughts from afar you discern my going out and my lying down you are familiar with all my ways this is a God I love you this is a God who cares about you this is a God who cares about Kabbaltia Baptist Church and what it's doing and how it's doing it whom it's doing it with this is the church that really cares this is a God who really cares about what we do and if we're flippant about that or we just leave it to somebody else are we being obedient are we being disciples that are going to bear much fruit we need to be able to grace that at the end of this Psalm so the tail end and the end the front end have a look at verse 23 search me God search me God and know my heart test me and know my anxious thoughts see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting they're not only is God know all about our thoughts he's asking us to be honest with him is to come into his presence in such a way Lord we can't go ahead I can't go ahead in this church in my ministry and what I'm doing unless Lord you've allowed you to search me Lord and point out the things I need to deal with and Lord I know that when I come into your presence you'll lovingly work through that with me and then one of the tragedies we have is that people all of a sudden put a wall up against God and they say I don't want to hear about you Lord yeah that's just too painful I can't give everything to you but he asks us to do that he implores us to do that it's part of the message of for the disciple to grow in him is to be able to say Lord search me I encourage you to read the whole of Psalm 139 this week you know Jason bought what was that statistic Jason 75 percent of people won't remember the message unfortunately that's not Baptist though no well it's just I'm sitting and thinking about wonder what would happen if I rang everyone individually on Wednesday night at eight o'clock or 10 o'clock or 12 o'clock or one o'clock depending where you were alphabetically and ask you to quote from the sermon I wonder if you could pastor Dylan pastor Dave what if we could set up an email we could send out and find if people actually read our emails you know how they sometimes have a signature on them are you still there pastor Dave you're fogging up oh there you see when we draw close to God and we deal with God and how we are then we have this understanding about what it means to listen to him and I missed that point from a previous slide but I'll just share with you a little station I'm just going to read it so don't get it wrong because when you've had a few head knocks like me over the years you forget me back when Telegraph was the fastest method of long distance communication a young man applied for a job as a Morse code operator now the word Telegraph comes from the Greek meaning tele far off and graph I write it's the same principle as television far off far off I see but also vision is Visio I see so television transporter teleporter is something's far off as porters I carry bring back together don't you love the English language that's awesome so this young man goes and applies for this job answering an admin newspaper he went to the office that was listed when he arrived he entered a large busy office filled with noisy clattering including the sound of the Telegraph or the Morse code machine in the background on the sign the receptionist counter instructed job applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the office the young man filled out the form sat down with seven other applicants in the waiting area but after a few minutes he got up and he walked into through the doors into the inner office naturally the other applicants perked up straight away how come he jumped the queue I'm wondering what was going on they muttered among themselves that they hadn't heard any summons yet they assumed the young man who went into the office made a mistake and be disqualified within a few minutes however the employer escorted the young man out of the office and said to the other applicants gentlemen thank you for coming but the position is filled the other applicants just huge uproar and grumbled and complained this is not fair they said and they said wait a minute we don't understand how he was the last to come in and not even got a chance we didn't get a chance to interview he got the job that's not right the employer said this I'm sorry but all the time you've been sitting here the Telegraph has been ticking away the following message in Morse code if you understand this message then come right in the job is yours no one else heard it God is tick tick ticking away on his Morse code he is saying listen to me please listen to me I want to speak to you over these next four to five weeks five weeks I want to speak to you and I want you to listen I want you to record what's written down I want you to share and glorify and celebrate what I'm doing in the life of Kabbaltia Baptist Church it's not exciting stuff it means something for everyone here it means something that a blessing is going to come on the right of on the back of this understanding God is talking God is speaking to us we just got to listen so when we put on our prayer goggles we have A the first one Father reveal in me anything that requires my repentance and forgiveness we need to listen we're going to ask God that question are you game enough to ask God that question and listen for the answer let me read that again Father reveal in me anything that requires my repentance and your forgiveness it's a bit of a tough call that one isn't but God is going to speak to you about that he's not slow as some think he is slow Lord accept my repentance from what you've shown me and I've written in brackets for personal growth write it down so when God points it out write it down one John 1 9 says that we confess our sin it's faithful and just or forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness when we write it down it just gives that visual understanding of this is the stuff that God's dealing in my life praise God he's pointed this out because this won't be holding me back any longer it could be anything from anger it could be anything from self-righteousness it could be anything from just pre preconceived ideas about what God is doing in the life of the world and he will speak to us and when we hold those things in a heart what we're doing we're saying Lord we're taking our goggles off we don't see you anymore we want all the distractions to come flooding in he wants to get your attention there's no timeline to complete these two can I just say even though they're around for week one can I encourage you to do this quite often in your prayer life in your personal time with God quite often come back to him and say Lord search me is there something here I need to deal with and please Lord point it out to me so I can repent because I don't want this to be in my life if it's getting see sometimes we have things in our lives we're not even realizing that are there we put it down to a personality trait we put it down to all sorts of things we're a victim we're a product of our childhood they're the things we need to leave at the foot of the cross and God points them out write them down put them aside we don't need to hear those by the way you don't have to send those to us when after everyone's confessions come flooding in we haven't got enough places for those are joking the second part of that psalm and put our prayer goggles on part b is the body at heart by whom the how and the when this is great unbeknownst to any of us pastor them was reading a separate book about prayer and he came up with these three pointers as well and so we're thinking what's God saying here okay he's got this one coming from this way this one coming this way prayerfully Lord where does that fit in what we're doing so Lord as your body and the light into the world we want to honor you through our witness the community father bring us into unity when we reveal the way if you haven't picked it up I'm working off this prayer sheet so there's the prayer sheet and these are the prayers I'm working through just to let you know that we're going to be walking with you there's thought gone into it we haven't just written down a whole bunch of stuff copied and pasted off some prayer journal somewhere it's stuff that we've thought of and prayed through and really sought God after so when we have a which is the first part about God dealing with us and b it's about how we interact with each other and community in the church and we start to understand God starts to paint a pitch and he will speak to us he will get us to write stuff down you might think this is absolutely ridiculous when we're in praying here on a Tuesday morning and they're called to prayer every Tuesday I write down things that pop into my head from God and I've got some weird stuff like I've got the vastness of God and I had this image of me in my head of the edge of strategic strategic desert where we were a couple of years ago and how there's nothing out there and it just woke up in the morning looked out across this desert and I'm thinking wow our God is a great God out of all the expanses he still has a relationship with me I'm so thankful for that because he's handed everything and I know the time I wrote down Jethro and Midian don't know what that is still praying to that one again another time I wrote down Sippers and Lappers I mean what's that about and then God revealed to me through his word about Gideon how when Gideon had to get all the guys together to God wanted to fight the Midianites and he said I want you to take an army but I've got to be the one that shows you the glory it's got to be done through me it can't be done through strength the numbers so he got getting to all these things one of them was to take everybody and say to them if you don't want to fight you've got kids go home so he put people left he put fellow's left soldiers left then he took them down to the river and he said I want you to just get a drink the drink and 300 scooped up like this and sipped like this and the rest of them went down with their faces down into the water and God said that's the 300 I want I think God how does that fit into this picture God wants us to be up prepared and alert while still getting sustenance he doesn't want us to be focused on our own feelings here and looking at what's in front he wants us up with our hands up like this so that we can be respondent to him be aware of what's going on that's how I perceive that passage of Scripture you're doing this time the next one is that show me where my role in your plan is for this church that I might humbly contribute to your kingdom you ever thought about that question Lord how can I humbly contribute to your kingdom in the role of this church what is this church and what can I do there's a challenge for us there write it down what God reveals to you Lord reveal the ways you want me to pray as an intercessor throughout the next steps for our leaders and pastors it sounds a bit self-serving the Bible tells us to pray for those in authority over you because they have to one day give an account before heaven wow that's a pretty important thing that's what keeps us all humble it keeps me humble makes me worry Lord am I doing the right thing Lord show me how to be a pastor how can I do better there's the things I need to repent from is there things they look at I can do the glorify your kingdom better when we're praying for our leaders what we're saying is Lord you've put them there Father you've called them so Father I need to be obedient and pray for them lift them up before we pray protection over their families pray over their their their households so you can really cover them in prayer so that's the prayer points they're all come off there so pray this week I ask you write down what God's revealing to you but during this time we believe the future direction will be indicated by God in the portions he sees fit and over the purity sets in place we want you to be encouraged too that as you participate it's all essential to do this with the mindset that's no someone else can do this but I've been called to do this and there's a great opportunity to see what God is doing through his responses that is what we're doing in our prayer our journey of prayer our season of prayer so when we put on our prayer goggles it's about the season now and the season beyond because what we do today will affect the future it's also the latest spiritual before the practical I can't emphasize this so much because we are just men of fixes we want to fix things and we want to just say something's broken fix it let's do it but to actually sit and wait in the presence of God and say Lord I want to we want a spiritual foundation for this so that we know what you're going to do later Lord please speak to us we pray and then John 15a it brings it home for us this is to my father's glory that you may bear much fruit showing yourself to be my disciples folks we sit on the corner of Grant and Torrance road we've been here since 1984 we're still here every week I get one or two sometimes more over a period of time real estate developers wanting to buy sections of the park beside the church they don't realize that it's connected it's all one we believe that God's put us here for a purpose aren't we not just to sit in our comfortable building but to say God what is next for us what is it you want us to do please reveal it to us there's one last quote I'm going to share with you it's on the sheet as well but worship team if you want to make your way up please feel free to do so before I pray is only when we begin to see that nothing matters will occur except in answered prayer that prayer will become more than an optional act for faithful few but instead will become a driving force for our churches that was a quote on a prayer pamphlet that was given to me and I read it several times and I thought wow this person from the Australian Baptist mission and it's an old paper really nailed it let's pray Father we thank you Lord you've called us as your body Lord as your church Father to worship you Lord we thank you you've called us for a mission that you sent Lord for the disciples in Matthew 28 and Lord the mission that continued through the book of acts as we read of lives changed and transformed Lord because of the word that was spoken in truth the gospel that was shared and Father we know that we are a church of faithful people who are seeking you Lord speak to us I pray Lord this week Father reach deep into us Lord search us that we may know where we need to repent or we may know the path you want us to choose Father we don't do this with Lord flip and see we don't do it with just an attitude of let's get it over and done with Lord we want to sit at your feet and listen to you Lord each person here today Lord I pray will be Lord touched by the Holy Spirit we prompted throughout the week Lord how can we how can I be involved Lord how can I respond to you Lord speak to us I pray Father help us to be bold and obedient enough to stand and to walk where you've called us Father we thank you for the opportunity Lord we thank you for the joy Lord it is to be in your presence Father to pray to speak to one another to share life Lord to sing songs and worship Lord it's just so good Father we got a whole community we know doesn't know Jesus as Lord and Savior Father help us to do what you've called us to do Lord to be your missionaries on your name amen