Vision and Commitment 2022 - Posturing our hearts

Intro

A talk in 3 parts.

1st we’ll briefly explore the passage

2nd I’ll share the vision God continues to reveal to us

3rd we’ll unpack the commitment God asks from us

Illustration

I don't know if any of you were taught about posture at school?

My Mum used to get us to place a book on our heads and see if we could walk in a straight line without it falling off

You’ll notice that the Queen always stood up straight with her shoulders back.

It is a stance of standing tall - authority

In the Queen’s presence, men would do a neck bow and women would curtsy when meeting the Queen, and all were expected to stand

These gestures show the respect and dignity toward her because of her status as Queen

In worship we take a number of different postures before God

Stand to sing

sit to pray

submission - kneeling

receiving - arms out

thanksgiving - arms up

Outward postures of something going on within

We could call them outward signs of the posture of our hearts

Songs we sing such as We bow down and confess (but no-one is physically bowing) perhaps closer (We bow our hearts)

Posture of our hearts

Passage

Self-denial and the cross

Jesus had just shared with them that he would have to suffer, to be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law and that he would be killed before rising again. He was honest about it with them and, and Peter took him to one side and rebuked him for saying such things.

Jesus names the lie that Peter believes, that this could not happen to him, that Jesus could not be taken away from them. His human desire, his love for Jesus overwhelming him. And Jesus rebukes him strongly commanding “Get behind me Satan! You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Jesus could see the big picture from God’s perspective.

Jesus, God on earth, was ready to have all human authority and dignity, of his position and status as a teacher, as a good man, as a godly man, stripped from him by the religious rulers.

The cross is...

The Gospel according to Mark Messiahship and Discipleship (8:31–9:1)

An image of extreme repugnance, the cross was an instrument of cruelty, pain, dehumanization, and shame. The cross symbolized hated Roman oppression and was reserved for the lowest social classes.

Jesus, was ready to surrender his life so that you, and I, and all who call on him as saviour and Lord, will be saved for eternity.

Mark 8:34–38 NIV 2011

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.’

It’s a hard message. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross.

To deny ourselves to lift up God in our lives.

To deny ourselves our human desires of this life because God knows and wants our best. And our desires will never satisfy us when they are not his desires for us.

The image of the cross displays from the disciple, the total allegiance to Jesus and the abandonment of our claims to material, emotional, intellectual and all human assets.

When we take up our cross, when we posture our hearts in submission to Him, we are saying “Jesus, we are all in, and we want what you want not what we want.”

As James preached last week, God is jealous for you.

We can’t be jealous, because really nothing is ours. When we are jealous, we want something which isn’t already ours. But God created everything. Everything is rightfully his. And we have been stolen. Our hearts have been postured toward human desires. Toward power, sex and money. Of course in human terms, apart from being a respected teacher, Jesus didn’t have much human power, he was single and celibate his whole life, and he didn’t have loads of wealth. And yet. without the desires of broken humanity, He changed human and cosmic history.

Our way, really isn’t the best way.

The most fully human person who ever lived, Jesus Christ, did not need the things our broken hearts lust after.

When we seek to save our lives we will loose them. Because there is only one who can save. His name is Jesus.

And he is calling us to a deeper relationship with Him.

He is calling us to re-posture our hearts again today.

Remember when you first gave your life to Jesus. When you first said “yes” to Jesus.

The day you received His Holy Spirit and eternal life which comes only through Him.

Jesus is calling you back to your first love. To the way you were when you first knew Him. With that passion, with that excitement to see Him work in your life.

I believe this moment in our history as a church, is a moment of surrender. A moment to re-posture our hearts toward Jesus.

Vision

Friends, vision starts with seeing who we are before God. It’s about seeing the world as he sees it and the vision of St Mark’s is not my vision, nor your vision, but God’s vision of us and for us.

So let me share with you some familiar things.

We are a church who’s mission is all about

Knowing Jesus

Loving Eachother

Caring for our Community

Our values are that we are:

All involved

Becoming Disciples

Creating Community

Doing Evangelism

Encountering God

And we commit to a daily practice of the way of Jesus which we express in our rule of life. That we are

Called to

Pray

Read

Learn

Sent to

Serve

Tell

Give

Jesus calls us to abide with Him, to live with Him, and he said

John 15:4–5 NIV 2011

4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 ‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

I like to think of the rule of life like a trellis. A frame work, regular patterns and practices around which we abide with Jesus. Around which we grow in Jesus.

Last week we explored the cost of discipleship, the hard teaching that this way of life will divide us from some of those we love around us, who cannot accept our devotion and commitment to Christ.

If you missed it, you can catch up online or grab one of the ‘Growing Disciple’ leaflets from the table at the back of Church as you head out which explores what a growing disciple looks like in St Mark’s.

Wave

Can you believe that as a family we’ve been in Haydock for 4 years and on the 22nd October I’ll have been Vicar here for 4 years.

In the March of 2019, I received a vision from God at the New Wine Leadership Conference which was thoroughly tested before sharing here. And it is so exciting to be living within that vision as we speak.

In a time of silence, I heard God whisper ‘are you ready’

And I said, “ready for what Lord?”

I felt him say “for a new wave of my spirit bringing new believers. People who need much love, people who need me in their lives. People who are hurting, who are lost, who need much love and much grace”

I felt him saying that he would restore the years lost by the church, but that he had no place for pride, the pride of an organisation. That we are called to be his children, and follow where he was leading.

That night, I shared what I felt I’d heard from God with the team, and said that with anything this big, we needed to test it, to pray into it, and if it was from God it would grow in us, and if it wasn’t, it would fall away.

Well on the final morning, New Wine ditched their programme and instead opened the whole morning up to God to speak. (This hasn’t happened at any of the previous conferences I’ve attended)

And the speaker, a guy called Steve Uppal, confirmed my picture of the new wave of people coming, and asked the question were we ready. Now he was speaking to all the gathered church leaders, he had no idea he’d directly confirmed this word from God to us.

I believe that wave started breaking over us in January of this year.

We had started to prepare for this wave, which stood us in a better stead than we would have been when the pandemic hit. But that wasn’t the wave. We didn’t just prepare to rebuild our ministries after the pandemic, we discerned from the Lord His call to reach the young people of Haydock in a New way through employing a Pioneer Youth worker and we discerned the need to offer food provision, alongside improving our services offered through T.A.N.G.O

Since January of this year, we have seen 60-70 people accessing the services of our Food pantry,

and over 40 young people engaging regularly with our Wednesday Youth programme.

We’ve launched a new congregation specifically catered to the needs of those who want a less formal style of church gathering in the form of the voyager congregation

We’re also now seeing alpha run in OutWood and even more engagement in the lived of both Legh Vale and Outwood Academy (Haydock High)

Not to mention, the new seeker support on Fridays, seeing many local refugees given space to enjoy fun together and to access some food and clothing provision.

And that’s just the new stuff. We offer the community affordable furniture and clothing through our TANGO Warehouse and shop, a mid-week cafe which is just booming. A new chef, a new kitchen assistant and a real desire to connect with others from our community has seen has filling the centre with tables and chairs after the community groups have finished, just to keep up with demand.

We have so many mid-week groups, our toddler group, after school, club, ladies meeting, craft group, community garden.

People are being supported, the hungry fed, those in need of clothing are being clothed, those with little are being provided for. We’re being even better stewards of our environment, we’re saving tons of food, furniture and clothing from landfill, and we’ll be celebrating our latest Silver ECO award in a couple of week’s when Ruth from Tear-fund leads us in our ECO Sunday.

That’s much, but not all, of our regular outreach and community work.

God is at work! throughout the week here at St Mark’s T.A.N.G.O

Let’s remind ourselves of the less regular and more seasonal ways we have lived out this mission through our values by watching a video montage of the last year.

roll video

God is at work!

St Mark’s, I want you to leave today knowing that you belong to an active Church, providing for this community in ways I haven’t seen in other churches I’ve been a part of.

God is doing something very special here, and he has entrusted us with this gift.

Last year, I encouraged you from Paul, to fan into flame the gift which God has given you. In 2020, I asked you the question “what is in your hands”, what has God blessed you with?

And in 2019 we explored Jesus saying “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. Matthew 6:21

This year, I felt God clearly say he wants us to surrender our lives to Him. Surrender in every part.

The vision this year, which I believe I’ve caught from God is of St Mark’s as a beacon of love, joy and hope to this community. A Church full of people who are on fire for Jesus. A people who set aside differences, and who allow Him to cast our all fear, and who commit themselves fully to the service of Jesus.

I wrote to you all a couple of months ago about attendance, with an encouragement to ask Jesus the question “are you happy with my attendance”. Sadly, an administrative error led to only one member of each household being written to rather than both. There was hurt caused and for that I am truly sorry.

Aside from the admin error, the letter was written noticing a trend across Church where many peoples regular attendance had shifted to less regularly. The letter was not targeted and this message is not targeted at anyone in particular. This is a trend which can be measured and one which I’d love to see us turn around.

I’m not interested in bums on seats, or spectators in a show to be entertained. I’m interested in you, my brothers and sisters. You are called by the God of creation into a relationship with Him. Called to see the the transformation of our part of earth, as God brings His restoration through us, His people.

We’re not a church of consumers, looking to take and receive, but a community of church family who come to serve and to give to each other. And when we’re not all here, we are less.

Also, if you’ve struggled to come because of the apathy baptism families show to the congregation

I hear you and we have changed the process of applying for baptism at St Mark’s (see the website for more information) which requires families to commit to a regular attendance before any baptism is booked

From October we will only have baptisms on the 1st Sunday of every month, and I really do encourage you not to miss out on next weeks sermon on prophesy

These are opportunities for you to engage and welcome people who never come to church. Don’t miss out on your opportunity to show the love of Jesus to unbelievers in Church. God wants to use you in bringing them to the Lord who loves them.

Now you’re here today, and sometimes I’m preaching to the converted, but the vision is of us all, joining together in the work of Jesus here in St Mark’s. A vision where people are coming, and they are coming, to us to provide for basic needs. Food, clothing, furniture sure. But also emotional and spiritual support. Kindness which they don’t find elsewhere. Love, in the true Jesus sense of the word.

I believe the Lord told me last year that we were finishing the a phase of preparation, and that we needed to invest in the growth which he will bring in three years time. That was last summer. I believe these next two years need to be even more intentional. We need to invest in people in our local community, particularly where we’re seeing God’s hand on someone’s life, stepping up our intentionality around why we do what we do, and asking big question about fruitfulness. Because as we’ve seen, fruit grows where we’re abiding in Christ. When we don’t see fruit, we need to ask questions about pruning.

So our vision in short is riding the wave, picking up our surf boards, disciples of St Mark’s stepping into our mission of Knowing Jesus, Loving each other and Caring for our community.

Commitment

As we move to the third and shortest part of my talk this morning, as we talk about our commitment to Jesus in light of the vision you’ve heard and His call to surrender.

I will talk first about commitment in financial giving, and secondly in service.

I’m not going to share the usual pie chart today, in light of the Queen’s death. I’d already filmed it to keep it short and accurate, it is important that you as givers to church know where your money is spent, and it’s on the website for you to see later, and you will receive it in brief in a letter I’m about to write to you.

But the headline takeaways are

Your money is being stewarded well by the PCC, Standing Committee and Verna our treasurer and those who support her in that role.

The cost of St Mark’s last year divided by 200 regular worshippers (over a month) is £24 per adult per week

I share this figure every year because it helps you have an idea of what it would take to break even each year. I know not everyone can give this much, but also that others can give, and do give more

If 200 of us weekly gave £24 (around £100 a month) St Mark’s would break even.

The projected deficit for the church (which only takes into account planned income) is -£53,395 which includes our early estimates for the increase of the fuel bills here

Now I know that this time of giving is hard. Claire and I sat down and decreased a load of our spending in January, we had to do the same in April and we’ve got some big decisions as we move into October. In a human sense I know there is less for us to spend, and more need.

In a godly sense, I trust Him to provide for me. He is, after all, the creator of the universe, and everything belongs to Him. He has promised to never abandon me nor forsake me. He doesn’t promise an easy comfortable life.

I was at an event I attend every year recently, and in their session asking for support toward their work, I asked the Lord for a figure as I always do. And I was surprised by what I felt He said. I asked Him if I was imagining it, and I felt God clearly ask me “Do you trust me Dan?” I said I did, turned to Claire and she agreed. The gift was sacrificial. It means we need to go without a number of the things we’d planned, but we know God will use that gift in amazing ways.

And I share this with you because I felt a relief. It was strange, but instead of panicking about our finances, which we are careful with, I felt I’d recommitted myself and my finance into the hands of the loving creator. He has never let me down, nor will He.

Friends, we do this once a year, we ask you to consider giving a regular planned gift to the life of the Church. Planned gifts allow us to do more with the money you entrust to us. We are also asking you to ask the Lord if He is asking you to give a one off gift today.

A biblical model of giving is to give 10% of your income to God as an offering. It’s not a command that you give 10%, but it is a biblical precedent. If you’re not giving anything, I recommend you look at your monthly income and see what you can move to give 1-5%. If you give 5% why not offer God 6%?

The model we use personally as a family, is the one recommended by the Church of England. Giving 10% of our total income to the life of St Mark’s first and foremost and then anything we can afford above that goes to other charities.

Don’t forget, that 10% of your gift to St Mark’s also supports national and international charities.

Now, your giving is between you and God. It is not for us to tell you what to give, this is between you and the Lord. I know, that when I have given to God, particularly when I’ve surrendered myself and my finance to Him, I have seen Him do amazing things because I trust Him more.

It’s not comfortable, but my faith grows and my heart is free. Sin has less hold on my life and I my relationship with God is closer. It has to be, because I now rely on Him more than myself.

The other part of our commitment and surrender to Christ in St Mark’s, is in service.

Firstly, are you involved in the life of the Church?

I have to thank everyone who is at this moment. I am so blessed to be the Vicar of a Church where the culture is to serve. And I know many of you have served the Lord faithfully in this place, and in others, for many years.

The Lord isn’t done with any of us yet, and we have serving roles which are less physically challenging than others, for those who feel less able than maybe they were.

We do have a lot of areas where we need more support.

On the left hand side are the list of ministry areas most in need of support and on the right are also really in need of more support.

I’m asking whether you feel God is calling you to any of these roles.

The technical, but not tricky, roles of sound and visuals teams

The opportunity to share your faith with our children and youth. As part of safer recruitment we have a really good process for exploring these roles.

How about our welcome and hospitality teams, showing warmth and love through continuing to make every person welcome in this building.

Our sung worship team is stretched and would love those of you who are musical or love to sing to explore joining their team. And if anyone is rhythmical and would like to explore playing the cajon, the box drum, you’d be very welcome.

TANGO and Food pantry, serving the local communities needs, creating connection points.

And our wardens team, who oversee the background work of services, was already thin on the ground before the wonderful Sue suddenly went to glory.

As a member of St Mark’s, as a church family member, I wonder where the Lord is calling you to serve and is he calling you to serve in a more intentional way?

As you arrived today, you were handed a pledge form, and I’d love you to take it away and pray about it. Perhaps put it in your daily Bible. Once you have checked your finances and you’ve heard from God, I’d like to ask you to return the completed form. I’d love every household in the Church to have completed this form to help us with our planning and as a sign of your commitment to Jesus.

Connect Groups

Also, we launched the new connect groups last year just as a large Diocesan scheme was introduced alongside a couple of waves of carona. The ones which have launched have started really well, and we also have a couple which are less based around shared passions in mission but specifically going deeper into bible study groups.

Connect groups are the best way to be discipled within the life of St Mark’s at this very moment, and if you’re not in one then please do speak to a member of clergy or contact the office. You can even show your interest on the Church members page of the website.

Queen

I am struck by the commitment and service shown to us and our country by the Queen. A woman who was committed to Christ, who would sneak into Sandringham church through a side door some days, so that before being the Queen of England taking up her royal position in the Church, she was a daughter of the King of Kings, committed to serve Him with the gifts she had been given.

She served her country, the Church and her God with her whole life.

Will you serve your God and your Church with yours?

Close

I believe this moment in our history as a church, is a moment of surrender.

I believe God is calling us to surrender ourselves once again to Him.

I believe God is calling us to surrender our finances to Him, our job to Him, our families to Him, our other commitments to Him, and our friends to His care.

I believe today is a day where God wants us to let go of the grasp we have on things He has entrusted to us, and to lay it all before Him. To surrender our very hearts to His will, and to follow Him clearly.

So would you take a posture of surrender with me this morning. Perhaps you want to stand with your arms out, or perhaps you want to kneel. Whatever you are able to do, take a posture of surrender in this moment as we surrender our hearts to the God who loves us, the only one way can trust with our entire selves.