SIGNAL CHURCH CAPE TOWN
Terran Williams :- Build: A Jesus Church Pt.1
Yeah, can I have my mom and my son, I've asked them to do something interesting, to start a sketch that they will continue every Sunday during the message part. And I'll explain to you now what it is they're trying to do. Basically, I said they needed to draw a picture of the church using 20 different colors. Picture of the church using different colors. My mom, who is a professional artist, has asked me to say, "She's not a pastoral drawer, "so please don't expect too much from her." And Finn, I've seen one or two of your pictures. Let's see what you can do with this assignment. So grandmom and son combined. So I am starting a series today called Build. Build, and it's a series about the church. I didn't come from a Christian family. Well, I suppose I would have called myself Christian, you know, when I was in school and you had to fill in your forms, like what religion are you, Christian? I think I was even once said I was Catholic, but I mean, I couldn't have gone to a Catholic church more than three times. I did go to a Catholic school for a while, so then I was properly Catholic, but I did not have the support of my family. The priest told me I needed to go to church, and I couldn't get my family, so I went a couple of Sundays on my own, living in Sea Point, and I felt a bit spare, and then I stopped going. But you know, if I thought about what the church was, and I think a lot of people in Cape Town City think the church is, they think, "Oh, the church is a building." They immediately think of an actual building, an old building, and they think about it often maybe filled with stuffy people, hypocritical people, judgmental people, bigoted people, very old people, and even the feeling that if you want spirituality, that's the last place you'll find it, because those people are very far away from real life. Well, when I was 16, I became a follower of Jesus, and I joined the community just down the road, which is now Jubilee Church, but it used to be Cape Town Baptist Church, and I honestly was bitten by the possibility of these spiritual communities, 'cause I found a people that were experiencing lots of joy, they weren't stuffy, stuffy. They were not hypocritical, they were real about their struggles, they were not judgmental, they were under grace, okay, some people were judgmental, but there was a sense of God's grace, they were learning how to love all kinds of people, they were especially passionate about the next generation to see kids and teens of church was such a fantastic thing, and definitely we were getting to know God better and better, and in my journey, I've been part of many different churches, and it's a real privilege to lead the team that leads signal church. I mean, I suppose there's a spectrum, church at its worst, church at its best, and every church hopes you can be further on this side of the spectrum, you know, church at its best, and every church, even the ones that are church at its best, have got problems, I know I've been my whole life in churches, and they've got problems, and I keep thinking, where do these problems come from? And then I realize it's full of people, and as you know, people have problems, you've got problems, I've got problems, then we all get together, we bring our problems. So I don't hold out any vision of a church that doesn't have problems, there are good ways to deal with problems, and there have been times when I got pretty bleak, 'cause I thought sometimes the problems are too big, and then I remember that Jesus is in the church, and as long as he's in the midst of the church, there is hope, problems can be turned around into something beautiful, and I'm wanting us to cast a vision for you so that you can be bitten, like I've been, by the possibility of what church at its best could be, what church at its best could be, because in Matthew chapter 16, verse 18, Jesus said these words, he says, "I will build my church." What's Jesus doing right now? He's building his church. What's Jesus doing right now? Well, he made a promise, "I will build my church." By the way, we're gonna be studying the very first church, the Jerusalem church. Now, I forget what the numbers are, something like 4 million or 40 million, what are those two? Churches in the world. Okay, Jesus has been busy for the last 2,000 years, and the strap line of the series is discover the church. Jesus is building, and what I like about this idea of building is one, we are the stones, yeah? But also, we're the co-builders. Listen to this beautiful passage in 1 Corinthians 3, verses 9 to 11. For we are co-workers in God's service. You are God's field, God's building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder. Some translations have as a master builder. If your family loves Lego as much as mine, to be a master builder is an awesome thing. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a master builder, and someone else is building on it, but each one should build with care for no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. This series is an invitation to see the church Jesus is building, and also to give you a real sense that you get to be a co-builder in the church. You get to be the co-builder in the church. And over the years, an interesting thing happens when you're a church leader. People begin to think the church is the church leader. So someone comes up to you, who's been in the church for two years, and they say, you know, when is the church gonna start this? Why isn't the church more of this? And what they mean is like, why are you few leaders, not more of this? Why aren't you doing this? And I remind them, hang on, who's the church? We're all co-workers. If the church is gonna get better, it's not gonna be 'cause there's a few enthusiastic preachers and leaders. It's 'cause all of us are gonna catch a vision of the church Jesus is building. Now, the whole New Testament, which is the part of the Bible written off to Jesus comes, describes aspects of the church Jesus is building. But if there's one place that seems to pack in the most amount of insight, just in a short portion of scripture, I think it's Acts chapter two, which describes the genesis of the very first church, the church in Jerusalem. So the story is Jesus has just died. He has his disciples. He rises from the dead. He trains them for another 40 days. He says, I'm gonna leave, but I'm sending the spirit. There in Jerusalem, he goes up, the spirit comes down upon 120 disciples that have been trained by Jesus. They spill out into the streets, the crowds gather. Peter, who's the leader of the community, stands up to comment on the outpouring of the spirit and then preaches to the thousands of people in Jerusalem and summons them into the family of God and amazingly in Acts chapter two, 3000 people, apparently in one day, respond in the affirmative. They're like, we're very, very interested. So much so that they're willing to get plunged in water. I remember I became a Christian when I was 16. I went on a surf camp organized by the church down the road. My friend tried to get me to church. I wouldn't come, but he said, my church is organizing a surf camp. Okay, now they had me. And, but then I remember committing my life to Jesus and then I still remember them saying, "And would you like to get baptized?" I was like, whoa, slow down. But lo and behold, a few weeks later, I got baptized. It was kept on Baptist church. There was a baptismal booth. You wore a gown and then you took the gown off and you went in the wall and you popped out the other side. 3000 people in one day go from zero to hair. I mean, it's from like on the outside too, we're so interested they're willing to take the plunge and the church is born. And listen to what this community does, verse 42. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. The apostles were the 12 that Jesus had trained to lead and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to pray. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by their apostles. All the believers were together, had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Church number one, the very first church in history, it's being described. And I'm sure it's like me when you read it, you're like, sounds like a pretty cool thing happening. Sounds like something has caught a flame. And what we've done is we've looked at this Acts chapter two carefully. And actually there's almost like 20 different components or features to the church Jesus is building. So for the next six weeks, we're just gonna unpack them like three or four at a time. And I'm gonna do the first four. And the thing when you say, well, there's 20 aspects to the church, what I'm nervous is people go, oh, does that mean all churches must be exactly the same? And my answer is emphatically no. In the same way every one of you are different. So every church is different. Some churches are different sizes. They have a different moment in history. I mean, to be a church in the third century in Rome is different from being a church in Cape Town. In the 21st century, they've got different varieties of gifts. They're different stages of a church. So maybe the better analogy is every church should consist of these 20 components. But every church gets to piece them together in a unique way. Or maybe this way of saying it, there should be 20 colors in every church. But like Finn and my mom, they're gonna pull together those 20 colors in a one of a kind way. And so that's what we're gonna be doing and that's why they're using 20 colors. And in this series, I also want to cost a little bit of vision, which means describe little snapshots of the future that I believe God is highlighting to us. And I think vision is important. Some of you vision really doesn't mean anything to you. You're just interested in what is. But there are people like me who are very interested in where do you think we're going? And you climb on a bus. You just wanna know where the bus is going. So in the series, I'd like us to take little chances just to try to describe where we're going. Now, we can't be 100% sure where we're going. Jesus knows, but we can get a sense because Amos chapter three says, "The Lord does nothing without first telling "He servants the prophets." In other words, he likes to give little tidbits of clues, of where this can all go, where this can all go. And I'm hoping for some of you that are in need a bigger picture that you'd get it in the series. You get it in the series. The other thing is as we go through this, I believe that God is more and more working something into our very genetic as a church. And if I can just say it, I believe that signal church will become an increasingly influential church. And that it's got a, how do I say it, a multiplication power vested in it. So we're one church now. I wouldn't be surprised if in five years time, there's a few more churches. But here's the thing about those churches. Each one of them will be unique, but at the same time, each one of them will reflect something of what God is putting into us now. So in other words, what he's laying in now, you were there when it happened. You were there when it happened. And I believe that subsequent generations of leaders and churches will be benefiting from the way we taking God's words seriously about the church that we're becoming. So I'm gonna look at the first four components or the first four colors of the church. And just so you know, I think the first two are the most important, but they're all important. And so you're getting the really, really, really important ones right up front. Shall we go? Jesus number one is building a spirit filled church. Jesus is building a spirit filled church. Because in Acts chapter two, verse one, it tells us that the first thing that happens to the church is the spirit of God is poured out. When the day of Pentecost came, they were altogether 120 of them in one place, probably an upper room. Suddenly it sounded like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven, filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. The Spirit filled church is one where God's presence and power is palpable. If Spirit filled church is one, we got presence and God's power, it is palpable. That's, I love that verse. All of them were filled by the Holy Spirit. It's true that God fills us individually. Where you go, wow, I can feel God's presence. Maybe you don't have language for it. When you first experience, you're like, you just feel so much emotion. Tears running down your face. You're like, I don't know what's wrong with me. Such peace, such happiness, such safety, such like I've never had this before, like nothing in this world, not psychedelics, not a surf trip to J. Bay, not a holiday tour. No, no, no, no, I've never had this experience before. The experience of God's presence and power is, cannot be manufactured. By anything in creation, it's a creator thing. The creator gives you this experience of the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. And I love this description in Acts chapter two because it tries to reach for metaphors to describe this experience of God's presence and power. And it speaks about wind and fire and water and wine. If you can have the next slide up, wind and fire and water and wine, it says, it sounds like the blowing of a vine and wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where there was sitting. The word for spirit in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word is ruach, wind. I mean, we know about it, these North Westes that have been ruaching us. Just getting us ready for the South Easter, which is gonna ruach us again from the other side. The Greek word, which is the New Testament, original language is numa. Jesus said, the wind blows wherever it pleases, so it is with everyone born of the Spirit. The Spirit's infilling can be likened to wind and breath. The Spirit is free and powerful and life-giving and refreshing, not predictable, not manageable. And then I love this metaphor of fire. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that came to rest upon each of them. Fire, we know about fire and Cape Town too, don't we? Energizing, passion-producing, able to be passed on, purifying, bringing light, or inspiring. We may not experience this fire visibly or wind-audibly, but we certainly can experience the energizing gusts of the Spirit, or sometimes just a refreshing breeze, or all of the passion-producing flames of the Spirit in our inner being. So there's fire, and then there's water. Peter stands up and he says, this, what you're seeing here, this outpouring the Spirit, it fulfills a prophecy by Joel. And Joel, hundreds of years before it happens, said, "In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit." The word "poor" is a water metaphor. It speaks about how the experience of the Spirit is refreshing and satisfying and tantalizing and life-giving and makes things green. And then Cape Townians are particularly fond of the fourth metaphor, wine. Wine, some I ever made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine." Just so you know, my mum was married to one of the top wine masters in the country. How many years was that, mum? 22 years of marriage or something? 20 years of marriage, and then beginning of COVID, he went to be with the Lord. So we used to drink the best wine for 20 years. Now I'm reduced to plunk. But when I look back at the golden years of drinking decent wine... But listen to this, it says, "The crowds looking at this group of people "who experiencing the Spirit, "it says, 'Somehow ever made fun of them "and said, 'They have had too much wine.' "Then Peter stood up with 11, raised his voice, "and addressed the crowd. "He says, 'Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem.' "Let me explain. "Listen carefully to what I said. "These people aren't drunk, as you suppose. "Only nine in the morning. "The bar wasn't open at nine in the morning in Jerusalem." The art pouring of the Spirit came early in the morning. Now, to the observer, these people looked a little bit too happy. Must be alcohol. They looked a little bit too confident. Must be intoxicated. And it's true when the Spirit is poured out, it can make you really happy. You know, it can make you, it gives you real joy. Do not get drunk when wine, the apostle Paul says, which leads to debauchery, instead be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms and hymns and songs from the Spirit, sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. You know, people drink and then they start singing together. At least they're doing English pubs. I don't know what happens here and we don't do much singing here. But people start singing, singing. And these churches would be full of the Spirit, and then they took to singing, singing to each other, singing with each other, singing to Jesus, singing. There's an awful lot of singing in the church, I know. It's a sign of the Spirit. What to do with all this joy? Sing it out. And the Spirit makes greater boldness possible. Interestingly, Peter who's standing up is pretty bold, right? Speaking to thousands of people, well, just 50 days before Jesus had just been arrested. And he was freaked out. What's happening? She's been arrested and a servant girl comes up and says, "Hey, that Jesus is just being arrested, aren't you? "He's one of his proteges." And he goes, "No, I don't know this guy. "It denies him three times." So what happened to the coward who's now become this very confident human being? Well, the Spirit has made him more confident, right? And the Spirit brings greater joy, greater boldness like wine. And I was in Turkey with my wife for our 20th anniversary this year. I felt God speaking to me. There is a powerful outpouring of my Spirit on signal. Don't grieve the Spirit. Don't put out the Spirit's fire. The spontaneous parts of the meeting are as important as the planned parts. Teacher leaders and preachers to be in the moment and in the Spirit to prize my presence and to help people come into it. A message from the Lord. See, by relying heavily on the Spirit and your supernatural gifts, I think all of our efforts will have multiplied and accelerated effect. And the Spirit also gives us gifts, I just mentioned. But the Spirit also produces the fruit of a changed life. When the Spirit is active in a community, there should be change coming about. The number one adjective for the Spirit is holy. Holy Spirit. The holy Spirit brings holiness. Those who prize the Holy Spirit need to prize holiness. I'm not talking about a legalistic approach to life, but one that is pure and loving. It's wonderful that we pursue the gifts. Let's not neglect the fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit of holiness. So firstly, Jesus is building a Spirit-filled church. There are all kinds of communities in Cape Town. Right now, there's a bunch of people sitting in the water at Fourth Beach, freezing. And they think it's lacquer. There are other people. I don't know what other people are doing right now. A lot of people at home. Groups and groups of people. And I don't know what groups you part of. I'm part of a surfing community. I'm part of this, I'm part of that. But there's something about being part of the people of Jesus because we're the ones who've got the presence of God. The presence of God. COVID, I don't know if you were a Christian during COVID and took to online meetings. And then they'd praise God for that. But I don't know if you missed the presence of God because I sure did. It's something about the gathered people that gets to experience the presence. I do experience God's presence on my own. But there's something about being with the people of God. Tends to happen more often. Secondly, secondly, Jesus is building a spirit magnifying church. Jesus is building a spirit magnifying church. But each one should build with care for. No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. You know what happens in Acts chapter two? The spirit is poured out. The thousands gather around. Peter stands up, explains this is the Holy Spirit. And then he preaches about Jesus. He says, people of Israel, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles. Wonders and signs which God did among you through him. As you yourselves know, verse 23, Jesus nailed to a cross by God's deliberate plan, verse 24. Jesus raised from the dead by God because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Verse 34, Jesus to whom the Father has said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet, verse 36. Jesus whom God has made, both Lord and Messiah. When the spirit of God came upon Peter and he got to tell people stuff, one word dominated his speech. It was the word Jesus. Jesus. The preaching of the gospel, the preaching about Jesus was the foundation of the church. And in signal, we have been, since the beginning of the year, been just looking at Jesus from many different angles and we've just got going. And I think that's gonna be our bread and butter for quite a while. You know, we'll break away and do these other little bits like we're doing now and the church will come back to Jesus. And even when we're doing the other bits, we keep mentioning Jesus, Charles Spurgeon, a famous preacher of 150 years ago, led kind of a very strong church in England. He says, if Christ is not the dominant thread running through a sermon, then that sermon was a mistaken conception and a crime in execution. The spirit loves to magnify Christ. The spirit loves to magnify Christ. The Holy Spirit comes. He doesn't just give you lack of feelings. He wants to impress and imprint upon you Jesus. Jesus didn't seem real to you, but through the Holy Spirit, okay, now he's more real to you. It's like table mountain. Do you remember table mountain before we had the floodlights at the bottom? Come nighttime, no table mountain, got to wait for the morning, then the floodlights came. Jesus is invisible, but the spirit of God makes him real spotlight, shining on Jesus. As if the spirit says, look to Jesus. Listen to Jesus, go to Jesus, know Jesus, love Jesus, bow down before Jesus. And the spirit also signifies to us that Jesus is alive and reigning because in verse 33 of Acts chapter two, Peter says, Jesus, who's been lifted up to the very right hand of God, has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. His point is, his point is this, that when he was with these disciples, they could see him, they could touch him. He says, but I'm going away. And I'm going to go to the right hand of the Father and I'm going to rule the universe. And they go, wow. And then he goes, when I'm gone, you might feel, it might not feel so real, not a problem. I'm going to send down the spirit to you so you will know that you know that you know that I'm at the right hand of the Father and I'm ruling just like I said, I would. It reminds me of that story of Rolfed Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who said to his wife, who was so mortified that one day he would not come back from one of his trips and lo and behold, one day he did not come back from one of his trips. But he said, I'm going to the North Pole. When I get there, I'm going to release her homing pigeon. So you can imagine one day she's doing her washing, hanging up her washing in Norway and suddenly the homing pigeon comes, whoo, whoo. And she starts to shatter the top of her voice. He's alive and he's on top of the world. Neighbors think she's a bit crazy, but she's got the sign. He's alive. He's on top of the world, Peter on the day of Pentecost. He's like that old Rolfed Amundsen's wife. He's alive and he's on top of the world. The spirit of God, the dove, upon us. So we are a, we want to be a Jesus magnifying church. And yes, the thing, I think if you were to ask 100 people, why did you become a Christian? Why did you commit your life to Jesus? I'm not talking about nominal Christian, like you take the form. I reckon the number one answer will be Jesus. I heard about, who Jesus is? He grabbed me. I mean, Jesus is the number one reason that you want to be a Christian in the first place. I mean, Christian, without Christ, I, I'm nothing. Christian, Christian. It's Jesus, like, focusing on Jesus, people want to become Jesus followers. And over the years, some of my friends who were once Christians, stop being Christians, and often think, "Flip, man." And it's, and then we've, they've all got the same story. It's the smaller side things distracted them. And they lost sight of Jesus. So, dawn on me, if we are church that not only, that focus on Jesus, people want to become Jesus followers, but also far fewer of us will want to stop being Jesus followers. 'Cause, 'cause you can have a lot of reasons that you're not that excited, but if you focus on Jesus, where are you gonna go? What could possibly replace Jesus? So, Jesus is building a Jesus center, church, and I've asked my mom and friend to keep Jesus in the middle of that picture. And then number three, number three, Jesus is building a go-and-tell, come-and-see church. Jesus is building a go-and-see, come-and-tell church. I was struggling, there's a word called evangelism, and it's like, it's a word that, it sounds scary. So I was trying to think, how do you describe evangelism? And Julian and I were chatting this morning, and then we latched onto this, it's pretty a mouthful. It's go-and-tell, come-and-see. You are doing evangelism, if you go-and-tell, and you come-and-see, you say to people, go-and-tell, and you're also inviting them to come-and-see. And those of you that are new to church, or back-end church after a long time, so happy that you hear, we're a come-and-see church. Come-and-see. But in Acts chapter two, what happens, in the hundred, in a prayer room, the Spirit pours out upon them, it seems like they spill out onto the streets of Jerusalem. Maybe they go to the temple courts. And then each of them start speaking a prayer, and God gives them a supernatural ability to speak in other languages, so that the people can hear in their own languages. And you're a go-and-tell church of every one of us, and realize that what we have is too good to keep to ourselves. We need to go out there and connect with the people on the streets, your friends, your family, your colleagues, your co-workers, your running club crew, the other people floating in the cold water at Saunders. You're a go-and-tell church where you are sharing your stories, you are real about your faith. You're not pushy, you're not at a time at point. You know, and shove Jesus into a conversation, but you look for the natural opportunities. You go and you tell, you tell them about answers to prayer, you tell them how God came real to you. And Peter does it, he says these words, "Repent in me baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." That's an open invitation. But they weren't only a go-and-see church, they were a go-and-tell church, they were a come-and-see church, because listen to this verse in verse 47, "The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." In other words, people in Jerusalem who were not Jesus followers were welcome to come along and check things out. And there wasn't any pressure for them to have to, you didn't have to be a Christian before you came and just come along. And then as they came along, it came real to them. As they came along, it came real to them. And signal church more and more will become a church where every Sunday is a perfect Sunday for you to invite your brother and your neighbor. Come and see, no pressure, other people are lifting their hands, you absolutely don't need to lift your hands. Just come and see. And there's something beautiful about being in a room where God's spirit is present and people are speaking about Jesus and you can see lives have been shown. A lot of people discover Jesus discover Jesus that way. There's a prophetic sense I had in Turkey. Signal will win so many to Christ. Make it a Sunday after Sunday priority. Reaching out is something I have called signal to do. Don't wait for me to do it. You do it. And I will be with you as you do, confirming the good news of Jesus with power and summoning people into my kingdom of grace as you do. You can't make anyone a Christian. You can only point. You can introduce. Jesus is the one who draws us in. He's the one who draws us in. And then my last point for you is that Jesus is building a city-engaging, a city-serving church. Jesus is building a city-serving church. And I admit that I'm kind of shoving this into Acts chapter two because it's not strongly there. But there is a hint of it in verse 47 where it says, "They were praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people." What people? The people of Jerusalem. So people in Jerusalem came into the church, very excited about Jesus, but they didn't lose connection with the rest of Jerusalem. They were in the church, but they were still in the city. They still kept their relationships. And roughly speaking, the people in Jerusalem looked at what happened to these people and thought, yeah, it's actually a good thing that happened in their life. And it seems like we're getting some of the spillover effects, some of the spillover effects. And later on, they became persecutors. But every church should remember that we exist a servants of the city that we're in. We servants of the city we're in. The perennial question is, if the church of Jesus has a different set of values to the surrounding city, how is the church meant to relate to that city? And there's four options. Option one, we can become a bomb shelter. A bomb shelter. So in other words, it's like the world is going to ruins. Just leave them. Everybody come together. Let's hunker down. We're going to survive judgment. They're all goners. A lot of churches do that. Bomb shelter mentality. That's option one. Please don't do that one. Option two, we can act as mirrors. Here, you've got a church. You go, this is the values of Jesus. You have the values of the city. Oh, my goodness. They clash in some places. Not a problem. We just cross out the parts where they clash, and we underline the parts where they concur. So you actually reflect back to the city what the city is, as opposed to saying, hey, we're different. We believe differently about human beings. We believe differently about how they live, what to do with our bodies, what to do with our minds, what to do with our money, how to respond to human need. So we can act as a mirror. Don't do that. By the way, every church in history that starts acting like a mirror rapidly shrinks and then non-exists. Rapidly shrinks and then non-exists. Option three, we can be parasites. Yeah, we adopt the parts of our city that benefit us, but we make no effort at all to shape or redeem the city. So we're like, oh, there's so many cool things in Cape Town. We bring them on board. We dress like Eptonians. We do cool things. We've got a cool restaurant as we leave on a Sunday. We're like, ah, it's all for us. We tell the Eptonians come to our church. In other words, we just benefit from the city. We give nothing back to the city. And any church that's been run long enough, if that church where the non-exists should leave a big hole in the city where the city goes, oh, my gosh, who's going to do this now? Who's going to do that now? Who's going to do this now? Option four is the best one. We can be salt and light. We can live out the creative tension of being faithful to God while still maintaining contact and engagement, while still trying to serve and shape the city around us. Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Here's my prophetic sense in Turkey. I wrote it down. I will bless signal with special abilities to discern the times it lives in, to vary away from the idols of the age, to speak to the pressing questions of the people it seeks to reach in disciple. Don't shy away from challenging the idols and addressing these questions of the day. Signal will have an enormous influence on the city of Cape Town, not only by reaching many of its people across the city, but because the people of signal have a heart for the city and a heart for its people and use their skills and industry-specific influences to bless it. So, I don't know what you do in your 95. No one works 95 anymore. You know what I mean by 95, if we work at different times. I'm a surfer, and I'm mortified when I surf in the day. I'm like, what do you all do? Why are you at the surfspots? This is my chance to have this place to myself. It's my day off. Everybody's, you work. But the point is, you're probably in an industry, and two big things motivate our work life in the West. Celery and status. We have two things from our work. Celery and status. And then Jesus comes to us and says, OK, I've got a new motivation for you service. See, how can your love of God translate into love of neighbor in the way that you do your work? I love Premier Piadea the waiters and the shirts have got. All work is love made visible. What if you were to reimagine your work as through your work, you make the world a better place? Through your work, you serve people. And no matter what your industry, you can probably find a way to do that. You might struggle if you are in cigarettes and gambling. But the other ones, you could find something. True story. My wife has been in advertising, copywriting. And I still remember who once picking me up from the airport. And as we drove out the airport, there's this huge billboard for Grand West. And it says, every-- even the mother city needs a sugar daddy. And I just heard, like how many people's lives get screwed by gambling? So I had a bit of a half and a puff. I was like, Julie, first thing you see, you come to the city and now you're having gambling promoted? She went awfully quiet. She said, yeah, I created that billboard. But sometime later, she spoke to her boss and said, look, yeah, don't put me on gambling and tobacco anymore. [LAUGHTER] Can I ask you to stand up? Can I ask you to stand up? So the church Jesus is building is a-- what was the first one? A spirit-filled church is a Jesus-centered church. It's a go-and-tell, come-and-see church. And fourthly, is a city-serving church, where we are not parasites or mirrors or bomb shelters. We are meant to be salt and light. We're meant to be salt and lights. Every one of us come into the story in our own way. My friend Nathan was a Cape Town Baptist Church. He was in the youth group. And the youth leader, one Friday night, said to them, hey, write down on a piece of paper, your friends and your family, that you would like to become Christians. And Nathan wrote my name down. But he was also really struggling with his faith. He was in see point how with there were very few people interested in Jesus. And he was so discouraged. And on this particular night, he got quite emotional this teenager did. And he ran to the bathroom. And he cried in the lube, because it was too hard to follow Jesus. And he says, while he was crying, one of the few times in his life, he said, God spoke to him audibly. In the bathroom, he thought someone was in there, and one was. And God said, one thing to him, Nathan, don't give up. I'm so glad Nathan didn't give up, because some six months later, his efforts to share his faith with me would amount to something. And I follow Jesus to this day. Every one of us getting listed into what Jesus is doing on planet Earth. I can't think of a more exciting thing to do with your one and only life. And to team with Jesus in building a spirit-filled church, a Jesus magnifying church, a go-and-see come-and-tell church, and a city-serving church. And I'm mindful that maybe some of you knew the church today. Maybe you brand you to the Christian faith, and you're trying to make sense of it. Remember Peter's words repent and be baptized for the Giveness of sins. It starts with faith in Jesus Christ, simple faith. Jesus says, "Anyone who calls on my name will be saved." Jesus invites you to come. So today, you're welcome to come. Come as you are. You don't have to sort your life out. You come as you are. You trust in Jesus. He'll forgive your sins. He'll make you new. He'll take you into his family. He'll put his spirit inside of you. Can we just sing a song together? [MUSIC]
Build pt.1
Terran Williams
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xb2HxObpQtyDMuEENhN-SMbZLQs1GHiQ/view?usp=drive_link