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Well, good morning, everyone,
and welcome to church this morning. And this is our special Remembrance
Sunday. We have some special events that
will happen during the service. I'm going to read just one verse
to you, and then I'm going to explain to you what will be happening
during the remainder of the service. And just one little verse, and
it's found in John chapter 15 and verse 13. And here's what
Jesus said. Greater love hath no man than
this, than a man lay down his life for his friends. And as we come to this special
remembrance day and this special remembrance Sunday, this is the
centenary of the ending of the First World War, but there have
been many subsequent wars. Many people have laid down their
lives sacrificially that we might enjoy civil and religious liberty.
Homes have been robbed of fathers, sons, mothers, and daughters. And right up until this very
day, people are still laying down their lives for our religious
freedom and civil liberties. And we don't take that lightly,
and we want to remember those that have laid down their lives
and given up so much for us. And so during the course of our
special remembrance ceremony, we're going to have a number
of things that are happening. First of all, I'll be asking the congregation
in a moment or two to stand to receive the colours. And then
we'll be having our opening hymn, number 70, Oh God, Our Help in
Ages Past. And then we'll have a minute's
silence, we'll remain standing. And that silence will be concluded
by the last post. And then we'll have the Reverend
Philip Campbell to come and pray. And so if we can ask the congregation
to please stand whilst you receive the colors. Now we'll sing our hymn, which
is number 70, O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years
to come. I'm going to please remain standing
for a moment of silence. I want there to be some wreaths
laid during the singing of this hymn and the moment of silence.
Thanks very much. I shall learn from that story. I love you, my darlin', that's
just true. Be more gladdened in order soon, for I'm peace
in your pain. God's the watch that ends the
night, before the rising sun. I'm like the never-rolling stream
that's all its sons away. They fly forgotten as a dream,
cries at the open door. Now please remain standing for
a minute of silence at which the last post will be sounded
to mark the end of that minute of silence. We stand for a minute
of silence as we honour those who gave up so much that we may
be able to be here today without fear. ["Taps"] I love you The congregation may be seated. May we bow together in prayer. Our gracious God and our loving
Heavenly Father, As we bow in your presence on this special
Remembrance Sunday, we come to give you thanks. We thank you,
dear Lord, for the God that you are. We thank you that you sent
the Lord Jesus into this world, that he might go to the cross
and pay for our sin. And while today, Lord, we remember
those who have given their lives so that we might enjoy the freedom
we have, We give you special thanks for one who died upon
a cross that we might be free from sin and that we might know
eternal life with God in heaven. But Lord, we do want to pray
for those who are remembering loved ones today. We ask, Lord,
that your comfort might be given to them in double measure. We
pray, Lord, that they might know that there are others who are
thinking of them, upholding them in prayer. And Lord, as they
remember their loved ones, we ask, Father, that we might be
a help and a support to them. We do thank you, Lord, for those
who gave their lives in the world wars, and in subsequent conflicts,
and those who also gave their lives in the service of our province
in the time of our troubles. Father, we do pray again that
you might bring your comfort and your help and your sustaining
grace. And Father, we come to ask you,
Lord, to bless us as far as the future is concerned, We thank
you, Lord, for our uniformed organizations, the Boys Brigade
and the Girls Brigade who are with us today, and we think of
the potential of their young lives. Father, we pray that early
in life they will find the Savior and walk with Him. We know, Lord,
that they're not living in a world that is short of wars or short
of wickedness, but we thank you that they can go forward with
Jesus Christ in their lives. And so Father, we do want to
pray for the preaching of your word across our United Kingdom
today, across Northern Ireland, here in Utnabi, in Abbots Cross. Father, we pray that obedience
to your word may take place because people hear the Holy Spirit speaking
to them and motivating and energizing them to do what God says. We bring this, our prayer, in
the worthy and precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Savior and Lord. Amen. Amen. Thank you very much. Of course, we welcome each and
every one of you here this morning in the Lord's name. It's good
to have you here and hardly an empty seat in the church, which
is great. And we especially welcome the girls' brigade and the boys'
brigade. Thank you for being here. It
makes this particular remembrance service very special. And so
thank you for being here, and we appreciate you taking the
time and the effort, and to the officers as well, for being with
us here this morning. And of course, if you're visiting
with us, you are also especially welcome. Now we're gonna sing
another song together. It's number 546, if you're still
using the books, but we will have it on the PowerPoint. Be
thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. And we'll stand and sing
this song together. I belong there. You may be seated. Going to look
at a very simple theme this morning. If you're wondering what our
theme will be for the Bible studies, if God gives us health and strength,
then God willing, we'll be looking at the cities of refuge, which
are mentioned in Joshua chapter 20. And you might say, well,
what relevance has that got to us today? Well, we're living
in a very dark and dangerous day, and we will be spelling
out some of the dangers and the difficulties in which we're facing
as a people in these, the fast-closing days of time. And it's interesting,
the various and different names of the cities, and the descriptions
of them, and how much they are like Christ. Because Christ,
as Paul, as the writer says in Hebrews chapter 6, he's our refuge. And the cities of refuge are
very clearly a picture of Christ our refuge. And we'll be looking
at that over the course of some weeks. Of course, we have a very
special testimony coming on Tuesday week. A girl who was so opposed
to God that she educated herself in such a way that she could
try and prove to people that God didn't exist. And of course,
whenever people set themselves against God, they're playing
a dangerous game, because God singles them out, and he singled
her out, and she was converted. But then, as she was converted,
she had paralyzing diseases, was unable to walk. Someone spoke
a word into her ear. Do you think this is the way
God wants you to exist for the rest of your life? I say this
because God doesn't heal everyone, but oftentimes he proves his
power, especially in individuals who had set themselves against
God. And within a moment, a girl who was paralyzed was running
around a field in Antrim. You'll get a part of her testimony
on YouTube. Her name is Danielle Gault. If
you want to look it up, I want to tell you, I would say even
the crows in the field should be here on that Tuesday night.
If you've got a date with a girlfriend, call it off. If you plan on getting
married, postpone it. Because we're going to have special
prayer afterwards. She's an ambassador for UCB. So I had to go through UCB to
get her. And she's an ambassador for the churches, for UCB to
the churches. And you'll see a 15 minute clip
of her testimony on UCB. Can I say, I encourage you, because
we will be having prayer for those who need a touch of God
at that particular meeting afterwards, and we are looking to the Lord.
My little theme this morning is, life as Jesus gives it. Life as Jesus gives it. And we're
going to read a few passages of scripture. First of all, we're
looking at Luke chapter seven, And it's interesting that Luke
was a doctor, and he speaks about Jesus raising the dead. Now,
a doctor says this. He's recorded it. In fact, he's
recorded a number of those that Jesus raised from the dead. So
we're looking, first of all, from Luke's gospel in chapter
seven, and then Luke's gospel in chapter eight. And then that
one most famous of records of a person who was dead and Jesus
brought life to, John chapter 11. So let's read God's word
together and let's look at this simple little theme that we have
here this afternoon now as it is. Luke chapter seven, verses
12 to verse 15. Now when he came nigh to the
gate of the city, Behold, there was a dead man carried out, the
only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and much people
of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he
had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came
and touched the bier, or the coffin, and they that bear him
stood still, and he said, Young man, I say unto you, arise. And he that was dead sat up,
and he began to speak, and he delivered him to his mother. Luke chapter eight, verse 49
to 55. Luke chapter eight, verses 49
to 55. When Jesus yet spake, there cometh
one from the ruler of the synagogue's house saying to him, thy daughter
is dead, trouble not the master. But when Jesus heard it, he answered
him saying, fear not, believe only and she shall be made whole.
And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in save
Peter and James and John. and the father and the mother
of the maiden. And all wept and bewailed her,
but he said, Weep not, she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they
laughed him to scorn, knowing for assurance that she was dead. And he put them all out and took
her by the hand and called her, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came again, And
she arose straightway, and he commanded to give her meat to
eat. And then over there to John's
gospel in chapter 11. If you have a wee marker, just
put them in in those various places. We'll refer to each individual
as we go along. John chapter 11, verses 43 and
verse 44. And when he thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus,
come forth. And he that was dead came forth,
bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound
with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, loose
him and let him go. Our Father, we pray that as we
look into your word for the purposes of this gathering this morning,
we pray for help. We pray for liberty and freedom
and for the anointing of your spirit upon us each one. In Christ's
name, amen. There are various stories told
about Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy Bentham lived in the 19th,
the early 19th century. He was a bit of an eccentric.
He was also a philosopher and an economist, and it seemed he
had a lot of money. He was a bit of an odd person
as well, like some of you sitting in the congregation. He died
on the 6th of June, 1832, aged 84. Now there are various records
of the next part that I'm gonna tell you, and there may be elements
of truth to it. But he left quite a bit of money
to a hospital on one condition, that whenever they were having
their board meetings, they would wheel his mummified body into
those board meetings. And they seemingly did that for
quite some number of years. I don't know for why. Can you
imagine sitting across the table from a dead man at some of the
board meetings? Maybe there might be better board
meetings than some of the ones we do have. And of course, when they made
important and significant choices and decisions and determinations
in their business meetings, the secretary would always record,
Jeremy Bentham present, but not voting. Sounds like a good meeting to
me. How would you like to attend a meeting where the person beside
you or opposite the table was dead? And yet, in the spiritual
realm, those who have not been born again are still dead in
their trespasses and sins. They might be alive physically,
but spiritually have no consciousness of God, are not aware of the
life in the Spirit. Church is boring, God is irrelevant. The Bible, well, it's an old
archaic book that has no significance to me. And this man called Christ,
well, take it or leave it. If that's what keeps you happy,
sure, believe in it. A person who thinks such and
feels such is dead in trespasses and sins. There was a time when
the pastor that you're listening to now was dead. Yes, he would
have went to church now and again. He'd have even read the Bible
occasionally and said the odd wee prayer. Would even have been
afraid at night to go to sleep. in case something would happen
and he would never waken up again. But really, I was still dead
in trespasses and sins. When we look at these three people
who were raised to life again, we're beginning that they're
in the Scriptures to try to help us understand the significance
that Christ makes in the spiritual realm. We're beginning to learn
the significance of what it is to have life in Christ. They're
given to us as examples of the change and the difference. They are illustrations of the
great work that God can do in a life and in a heart. Now, you make up your own mind.
If you've had a life-changing, a life-transforming experience,
a time when you knew you were dead in sins, but God has made
you alive, you make up your own mind as
to when or if The light was switched on in
your heart. There was a dynamic took place
within your existence and the direction of your life was changed. and you've never been the same
again, or perhaps, maybe, even in this gathering, you are bored,
you're fed up, you've come to an end of yourself, and you wish
that something would happen that your life would change. Well, if you would listen, and
it's interesting that Philip prayed about obeying the word
of God, because a lot of that is contained in what I'm gonna
say to you. So let us look at these three. And let us look
first of all at the experience of new life. What a transformation,
what a change occurs whenever Jesus speaks life into our deadened
bodies. We are never the same again.
Our lives are transformed. Can I say to you it's a miraculous
experience. Throughout the Gospels, we have
many, many experiences of people who were healed and the miracles
of Jesus. The blind saw, the deaf heard,
the lepers were cleansed, and the paralyzed walked. But listen,
there was no miracle as great as those that were once dead
have been brought to life again. In fact, it says about this girl,
this woman, the young maid, it says very significantly that
Jesus spoke to her and her spirit came back into her. It's a miraculous experience. In other words, it cannot be
lived in the flesh. Now, these were not some plants
in the crowd. They were not primed at a specific
and given signal that when suddenly Jesus would say something that
they would simultaneously start jumping and leaping and doing
cartwheels amongst the people. They weren't plants in the crowd.
You know some of these TV evangelists, that's what they do, don't you
know that? that at a given signal, you'll see on the TV, some boy
says, they'll jump out of their wheelchair, and they'll begin
to run up the aisle and say, I'm healed. Probably we were
never paralyzed at the beginning. I call it consumerism TV evangelism. These were not plants. It's quite
significant that two of them that are mentioned were Luke,
were mentioned by Luke, and Luke was a doctor, and he wouldn't
be easily fooled. But the significant thing about
all three of these people, they heard the voice of Jesus. They all heard his voice and
they responded to it. I have noticed over the past
25 years or more that at a crucial and critical time in a gathering
or in an experience, a disturbance happens. happens quite often
at the most solemn of moments or at the very crucial of times.
Whenever there's a sense in which God is speaking that there's
a disturbance and that which God began to do is lost. There
might even be someone here today and you at one time began to
hear the voice of God into your heart and were almost at a place
where you were ready to obey him. And something happened. You lost it. There have been
many, many times when I've been counselling individuals and there
have been many, many times when I've been in the study and something
happens, a phone call comes and that light which was coming to
my soul is lost because there's a disturbance. It's the voice of God to your
heart that brings life. And the Spirit comes to that
individual that's hearing the voice of God. And whenever God
is speaking and the Spirit of God meets that word, you're exploded
into life. We're living in a world of noise,
aren't we? I was in a shop the other day, quite a few days ago,
and I want to tell you, even the walls were reverberating
with the noise. There's loud pumping music all
the time. Well, God speaks with a still,
small voice. And here's what it says in 1
Peter 4, Now I've come to the conclusion That for to obey something, you
must hear something. You can't obey something you
haven't heard. Wouldn't that be right? And so the gospel speaks
something into our hearts. The gospel speaks first of all
of the sin and describes the sin because you can't have good
news if you haven't got bad news first. Good news would be malignant
if it wasn't, it would be malign or it would be benign if there
weren't some bad news first. And so God says through his word
that we're all undone, we're lost, bereft of any spiritual
life. And he begins to show to us our
need of Christ. And as we hear and then we begin
to see that Christ is dead for us, then we begin to realize
that we need to turn from our sin and repent and receive Christ
and we employ faith that comes from God above. And so obedience of the gospel
is hearing and heeding what the Lord said. It says in Romans
chapter 8, how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall
they preach unless they are sent? It's a miraculous event. I love
that Charles Wesley hymn. Hear what it says. It's not a
miracle, isn't it? It's a miraculous event. I'll tell you what else it is.
It's a marvellous event. Have you ever used the expression,
that's the best day of my life, eh? The student when they graduate,
oh, that studying's over. The young couple as they trip
their way up the aisle, oh, that was the happiest day of my life.
Is that right, men? Come on now. Is that the best
day of your life? If the wife is listening, you
better say yes, even when they come to the front with a wee
baby for dedication, when it was delivered in the maternity
ward of the local hospital, or when you saw your wee granddaughter
find the love of her life, or when you passed your test and
got the driver's license to terrorize the countryside. That was the best day of my life. I want to tell you the best day
of your life is the day you meet with Jesus. It's the day you
fall in love with the Savior of your soul. O happy day that
fixed my choice, and thee my Saviour and my God, well may
this glowing heart rejoice and tell us raptures all abroad,
happy day, happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away. And there
it is, There's the marvelous experience that guilt is washed
away That sense of shame the stuff that you did last night
that stuff that you did last week the stuff that you did last
month those things that you're afraid that anybody would hear
and if they heard you be absolutely ashamed gone gone My sins are
all gone What a marvelous thing to know that I a guilty held
deserving sinner can know peace with God and forgiveness and
a new direction and a new home and a new life That's marvelous That's marvelous. I look over
this congregation and I know that there are many of you could
jump up to your feet and say, oh, it was marvelous, because
I was wallowing in the misery of my own sinfulness, and I was
wallowing in the misery of my own anger and arrogance, but
one day Jesus spoke into my life, and I am a new person. Marvelous! I have yet to meet the person
who has ever regretted meeting Jesus. Can you hear? I was trying to
think of that wee song. I'm not going to sing it. I haven't
got the breath to sing it. Peter and John went to pray. You know
it? Anybody want to come up here
and sing it for me? Peter and Joan went to pray. They met a
lame man on the way. He asked for alms, and he held
out his palms, and this is what Peter did say. Silver and gold
have I none, but such as I have give I thee in the name of Jesus. Christ of Nazareth, rise up and
walk. He went, what is it? Walking
and leaping and praising God. I tell you what, see, whenever
the leper was cleansed, he had to tell someone. You see, whenever
the paralyzed man was healed, he had to go and tell somebody.
You see, whenever the man, these people who were once dead in
trespasses and sin, even their parents went and told people,
this, my child was dead and is alive again. It's marvelous. It's a momentous
experience. Can you imagine these three? One day they're out for
a wee bit of a walk and they look into a cemetery and here's
what they'll say, there but for the grace of God go I. Isn't
that right? There but for the grace of God
go I. I think of John Newton, amazing
grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once
was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. Charles
Spurgeon was saved at the age of 16. On a snowy Sunday morning,
he made his way to a little Methodist church. There was only a handful
of people turned up and it was so bad that even the preacher
didn't turn up. And one of the board members,
I think that's what they called him in the Methodist church,
because there was no one there to preach, He had been reading
that morning from Luke chapter 45 and verse 22, and it had somehow
had blessed his heart. He didn't preach a sermon. He
just quoted a text. Look unto me and be ye saved,
all ye ends of the earth, for I am God and there's none other. And Spurgeon left that meeting
and no one knew what had taken place in his heart. And then at the age of 22, he
went back to the church And he preached on that same text. And
he said, six years ago today, or as near the hour as I can
possibly bring it, he says, I was in the gall of bitterness and
the bonds of iniquity. Oh, good old language there,
isn't it? Seeking rest and finding none, and I stepped into the
house of God and sat there afraid to look up, because lest I be
utterly cut off. and lest his fierce wrath should
consume me. And this text was read, and I
looked at it that moment, and he said, Grace, the grace of
faith was vouchsafed to me, and in the selfsame instant I may
say, ere since by faith I saw the stream, his flowing wound
supply, redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I
die. He went on to say, he goes on,
I shall never forget the day while memory holds its place,
nor can I help repeating this text whenever I remember the
hour I first saw the Lord. Oh, it's a momentous experience,
and it's clear for all to see, the experience of new life. Can
I very quickly then go on to say not only the experience of
this new life, I want to share with you the evidence of this
new life. I can remember there was 11 of us, as you've often
heard me say, in our house. And when one got a wee bit of
a cold, everybody got it. And one day I was feeling quite
unwell, as was the rest of the tribe. And I began, there was
this little, I went first off, went off my food, and mainly,
I have to be very sick before I'm off my food. Is anybody else
like that? It's the last thing that goes
for me. And it seemed as if there was something in my tongue, and
everything tasted horrible. And the next thing then is a
wee spot broke out here, and another spot broke out there,
and before you know it, it was covered in spot. Guess what I
had? The measles. And before you knew it, everybody
in the house had measles. So it was money saved that week
on food. New life in Christ is a wee bit
like having the measles. Once it happens, it soon pops
up all over the place in your life. All over the place in your
life. Notice John chapter 10, or John
chapter 11, that when we read about Lazarus, there's the alteration
of a new life. It says in John chapter 11, we've
read it, verse 43, And when he thus had spoken, he cried with
a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth
bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound
about with a napkin. And what did Jesus say? Loose
him and let him go. Oh, I want to tell you, whenever
the Son sets you free, you're free indeed. You know what you're
free from? You're free from those old guilty
habits. You're free from that old bad
temper. You're free from that old bad tongue. The grave clothes
are those things which covered the real Lazarus. Whenever Christ
led him out of the tomb, And he says, loose them and let them
go. Those old grave clothes were removed. Oh, you say, I couldn't
become a Christian, because I still do this, and I still say that,
and I still think this, and I still have a habit to that, and I'm
still addicted to this, and I'm still addicted to that. You let
him loose the bands. There's a wee verse that I call
it real Christianity. I'm going to read it to you.
It's 1 Corinthians 6 and 11. Listen to this. Know ye not that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived,
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves as mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit
the kingdom of God. Huh, there's not much hope for
any of us, is there? There's not much hope for any of us.
And he says, but such were some of you, but ye are washed. Have you been to Jesus for the
cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Oh, I want to tell you it's the greatest detergent
known to humanity. It cleanses the vilest offender
that truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
And don't you condemn yourself in this gathering today saying
that I've done stuff and I've been places and not even God
himself can forgive. The devil and sin itself can't
hold out against the blood. It may well be that you would
love change and the old grave clothes of your life to be moved. A lot of people think that salvation
is just a new start in life. It's a new life to start with,
because you get God's life. Now, you'll hear in the Bible
studies that a wee bit of civil war goes on. You ever hear tell
a civil war? There can be civil war in a church, there can be
civil war in a family, there can be civil war in a country.
Not right, you can be fighting against people that you love,
or you can be fighting against yourself. It would be good that
I would, I do not, and evil that I would, not that I do. Who shall
deliver me from this body of death, said Paul. Well, whenever you get a new
life, your old life doesn't like it. But I want to tell you this. There'll be things that you'll
want to do, there'll be places you'll want to go when you get
this life of God in your spirit and in your soul. And you begin
to see a change in an atmosphere of God in your life. Because
you're beginning to see the light and follow after him. There's
the alteration of new light, there's the appetite of new life.
Luke chapter eight, verses 54 and 55. Notice what he said there. Whenever the young maid was raised,
he says, arise and give her something to eat. When Jesus said, whenever she
came back to life, he says, give her something to eat. She awoke
from her sleep with an appetite. Some of you boys have a brave
appetite. It's great to have an appetite for God, isn't it? Here's what the word of God says,
as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may
grow thereby. If your growth in Christ is stunted,
it's because you're not into the word. There's an appetite. And there's an interesting wee
verse in 1 John 2, and it says this, What is this spiritual
hunger that we talk about? How can you describe it? Some
people put it down like a child in a sweetie shop. the pleasant and the pleasurable
and the pleasing things to taste. And the impression that I get
sometimes from people is that they think that salvation is
just getting things, nice things, luxuries that they didn't have
before. As if God were some genie and all you had to do is rub
the bottle and you get your blessing and your wish. Well, when John
was talking about keeping his word, That word keep is taken
from the early mariners' life, where they guided the ship as
they according to the stars. And the psalmist said in Psalm
40, he said, I delight to do thy will, O God, yea, thy law
is within my heart. Jesus saith unto them, my meat
is to do the will of him that sent me. So let's get back to
this appetite. What is it really? What is this
spiritual hunger? This spiritual hunger is a desire to do the
will of God. That's what we get an appetite
for. A desire to please God. desire to honor God. A desire
to live for God. That's the appetite. It's not
an appetite to just be shared upon with blessing after blessing.
No, it's an appetite to live for God for the rest of our lives.
And our lives are guided by his word and by his will. That's
the appetite. And there's the activity of the
new life. Again, looking at that first one, Luke chapter seven,
what happened? She sat up and she spoke up.
There was two people at her wake of a friend one day, and one
said to the other, what would you like for people to say about
you at a wake like this? And the other man says, I would
like them to say, look, he's moving. I remember when I got saved,
The very first thing, and I don't like always talking about myself,
but I can only talk about my own experience because it's the
only one that I know. I don't know what your experience is.
You could be saying one thing and living another, you know
that. But I know this. The moment I was saved, I went
into work the next day, they're looking at me as if I've got
two heads. He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lived! Listen, this
is not a godly place that I was working in. And I was singing,
when I would have been singing worldly songs, now I was singing,
he lives, he lives, Christ Jesus lives today. And they're all
looking at me and they say, what has happened to you? Galanders
has got religious. No, Galanders has got Christ.
Better still, Christ has got Galanders. And everybody I met, I almost
took them by the throat. Let me tell you about Jesus.
Let me tell you about Jesus. Let me tell you what he's done
for me. Let me share with you what he's
done for me. someone who was useless, someone who was selfish
and self-centered, and I guarantee had the worst temper of any man
that was ever in this gathering. You couldn't have looked at me
crossways, but I took the head of you. Let me tell you what Jesus did. It was almost an embarrassment
to the family. Not my family, not Esther now,
but the wider family, because they kept all about birth. Whenever
there was a party or something going on, we weren't invited
because we made talk about God. Listen folks, if you're a Christian,
you make sure you tell people about Jesus. If we confess with
our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe with our heart God raised
Him from the dead, we shall be saved. She sat up and she spoke
up. Here's what Jesus said. In Luke
12, verses eight and nine, whatsoever shall confess me before men,
him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of
God. And he that denieth me before
men shall be denied before the angels of God. And your life
tells a story, and it's high time our talk matched our walk. Notice the effect of this new
life. Luke 7, 16 and 17, there was
singing and there was dancing and there was rejoicing. There
was the praise that it brought to the Lord. Many shall see in
fear and shall put their trust in the Lord. The moment you get
saved and begin to live for God, It's for the ultimate purpose
of bringing glory to His name, not to ourselves, not for the
world, not for that controlling partner that you're married to. It's for the Lord. It brought
praise. Psalm said, he lifted me out
of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon the rock, established
my going, and he put a new song on my mouth, even praise to our
God. Many shall see it and shall fear, and put their trust in
the Lord. Oh, it brought praise to the
Lord. But it also brought people to the Lord. You know, we can
have our campaigns, and we can have our special efforts, And
we can have our aggressive outreaches, and we can have our special testimonies
that we'll have on Tuesday week. But there's nothing, but nothing,
but nothing is more effective than a life that's lived for
God before people of a changed and a transformed life. Who are you bringing to God these
days? There's a man telling me a story the other day, and he
says, this man was inviting people into a meeting, and the door
of the hall that they're in reached out onto the footpath of this
busy town. And the boy that was inviting
the people in was known to be a bit of an old sour boy. You
never meet anybody like that, a bit sour. You won't know what
you've done on them. and you see them every day and
you wonder what you did on them. So a wee bit sour. So he was
inviting this boy in and he looked at this sour boy as he came into
the meeting. He said, I've got enough trouble
of my own. I said, I'm not going in there to get trouble again. You know, I trust that our lives
are telling for God. and that we're an attraction
to the gospel of Christ. And we're not some massive put-off,
because he gives us life. Not license, life, by the power
of the Spirit. And maybe that's what you need
today. Let's bow together in prayer,
let's pray. Our gracious God, we pray that
as we bring this gathering to a conclusion, that we will certainly
know your gracious hand of mercy and love. forgiveness. On this remembrance Sunday, Lord,
what a great day to give our lives to God whenever so many
give their lives for our freedom and we ultimately think of Christ
who gave his life for our salvation. And today, Lord, somewhere in
this gathering, perhaps there's some soul that's reaching out
to you just for that. We pray that you'll give them
courage and clarity of thought, in Christ's name, amen. 619, and of course, the greatest
thing that you can do as we think about remembering Sunday is remembrance
of Christ who died for us. And the greatest thing, the greatest,
Action that you could take today is to trust the one who gave
his life, that you may be forgiven. Let's stand and sing 619. Thanks,
man. ♪ We know what our God is doing Yes, I forget, I forget. Thank you. Thank you. yeah yeah Yeah. I love ♪ For all to know the King ♪ ♪
And wash my lips with holy wine ♪ ♪ To the stream of Calvary
♪ ♪ Lest I forget that sanctity ♪ ♪ Lest I forget my divinity ♪ Well ask the congregation to
remain standing. We're now going to return the
colours and then we're going to stand for the National Anthem
and then I will bring the benediction. Flower Party. Bye-bye. Turn. God save our gracious
Queen God give our noble Queen God save our Queen And now may the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, our Heavenly Father, the
presence and the blessing of the Spirit of God, rest, abide,
and remain with us each one. In Christ's name we pray, amen. We'll march out the colours just
now, and after the colours are removed, the various organisations
will make their way out. And so can I ask the congregation,
please remain in your seats, to the various organisations
have left. And being gentlemen, we'll let
the Gareth Brigade go first. Is that all right? Thank you
so much. Fuller party, by the road, slow
march.
Life As Jesus Gives It
Series Remembrance Service
| Sermon ID | 1114181654221 |
| Duration | 1:06:02 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | John 11:43-44; Luke 7:12-15 |
| Language | English |
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