Lost and Found Series 3

A series of inspiring and empowering talks aimed at encouraging folks to begin to step out in faith and their gifting’s to become all that they can be in God.

Raising Our Voice

I was really nervous.  I’d been waiting for this day for months.  My mum has helped me prepare something that might catch the eye of the reason for the excitement – a posy of roses made from crepe paper.  One of my mum’s many talents was making crepe paper flowers.  So there I stood, as the crowds started to form on the newly named Queens Walk in Reading – the Queen was coming to open the new Hexagon Theatre in this her silver Jubilee year.  We’d been let of school for the day and my mum had taken me down to get a look at HRH.  The posy was clutched in my hands, hoping to grab her attention.  I couldn’t really see down the pathway to see if she was here yet, but I could hear in the voices of the crowd, the excitement and the electricity in the crowd growing;  I knew she was on her way.  We’d been there for hours waiting for her.  Eventually, she came into view and I thrust my paper posy through the barriers.  To my amazement she stopped, paused and took them right out of my hands.  As she did she asked me, “Did you make these for me?”  In my wildest dreams I had not thought that she would stop and talk to me.  I had never heard a voice like it, crisps, clear, with perfect pronunciation, yet containing a gentleness and kindness.  This was it, this was my moment, as those around me hushed to hear the what was going on.  I opened my mouth, and out came gibberish!  My mum spoke up and explained we’d done them together.  The Queen smiled at me, patted my still outstretched hand and moved on.

We each have a voice and we each have something to say.

1.   Telling Our Story

Sometimes we think our story is of less value than someone else’s because of our poor self-image.  But if we have accepted Christ we discover that we are transformed!

2 Corinthians 3:18: And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lords glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Last week I mentioned justification, the doctrine of being completely and legally put in right relationship with God.  Just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned.

But there is also the doctrine of sanctification.  This is the doctrine that tells us that we are being transformed daily into a person who walks a holy life before God. We do not achieve this in our own strength, this is a work of the Holy Spirit in our life!

The basics of sanctification:

ü Sanctification Has A Definite Beginning At Salvation (Titus 3:5).

ü Sanctification Increases Throughout Life (Romans 6:12-13, 19).  This is a process not an event.

ü Sanctification Is Completed At Death (Hebrews 12:23; Revelation 21:27).  Our souls are sanctified at death and our bodies at Christ’s return.

ü  Sanctification Is Never Completed In Life (Matthew 6:11-12; Romans 6:14). (Grudem, Systematic Theology 747-759).

God’s role in Sanctification

Sanctification is a done by God:

1 Thessalonians 5:23: May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through…

We all are at different stages of this and we have to trust that God knows best.  For some we struggle in an area whilst others don’t.  We may look at them and ask, “Why don’t they change that?  When I became a Christian I stopped that immediately!”

The point is, we all come to Christ at different points in our lives and we all have different issues, but it is The Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sin area when He knows we’re strong enough to deal with it.

Our Role in Sanctification:

We have both a passive and an active role!  Our passive role is to accept and depend on God to sanctify us; our active role is to obey God that our sanctification (holiness) will increase (Grudem, 754).

Where do we see this in the Bible?

Romans 8:13: For is you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

Note: it is by the Spirit that we have the strength, conviction and power to put to death the sinful nature, but it is our decision to respond to the command to put to death the misdeeds of the body that holds the key.  The Holy Spirit is not commanded to out to death deeds of the flesh, we are!

Sometimes we will struggle with our story because we recognise that where we are is not always where God wants us to be.  The feeling that we need to go to new levels in His grace is a work of the Spirit.  Do not allow the enemy to twist this to become a condemnation (Romans 8:1-2).

Revelation 12:11: They overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

Stop focussing on the inadequacy of you and focus on the incredible redemption.

No such thing a superstar testimony.

No one can challenge your story.  Your story does not end when you get Born Again – it begins!  It becomes richer day by day.

Jeff Crabtree: Jesus told the world stories (parables) and the

disciples secrets, but the church has been telling the world its secrets and its disciples stories.

In other words don’t condemn the lost for being lost, tell them how you have been transformed by Christ!

The story is told of a young man who accepted Christ as his Saviour and applied for membership in a local church. "Were you a sinner before you received the Lord Jesus into your Life?" inquired an old deacon.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"Well, are you still a sinner?" the deacon asked.

"To tell you the truth, I feel I'm a greater sinner than ever." The young man replied.

"Then what real change have you experienced?"

"I don't quite know how to explain it," he said, "except I used to be a sinner running after sin, but now that I am saved, I'm a sinner running from sin!"

He was received into the fellowship of the church, and he proved by his consistent life that he was truly converted.

2.   Singing Our Song

The children of Israel were warned b Jeremiah the prophet of God’s coming judgment, but had rejected God again under Jehoiakim’s reign.  This warning was ignored, and Jehoiakim took the prophet’s writing and threw it in the fire!  Then Babylon, under king Nebuchadnezzar marches on and defeats Jerusalem. This happened in 604 BC.

Just a few short years later, Judah was utterly destroyed. Jerusalem was totally ruined; Solomon’s Temple, which had been the pride and glory of Israel for almost 400 years was reduced to ashes; and Mattaniah, last king of Judah was blinded and taken in chains to Babylon.

In this context we read:

Psalm 137:1-4: By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.  There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!””  How can we sing the songs of the Lord in a foreign land?

How do we keep our singing when our journey is tough?  Life is not always smooth.  It has bumps that we didn’t expect.

What Silences our ‘Song’?

By ‘song’ in this context I don’t just means singing a few worship songs on a Sunday.  I mean the melody of our life written in the song sheets of heaven!

ü Sin will silence the song in your heart! 

Well, actually, un-repented sin will quench the song!  It seems odd that when we sin we think that it needs to be kept back from God.

1 John 1: 8-9: If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sounds and purify us from all unrighteousness.

ü Discouragement quenches the desire to sing.

The Israelites in Babylon were overcome by being captives in "a foreign land".

It is in the "foreign lands" of our lives that we need to bear the strongest witness and sing the song of the Lord.

Getting Our ‘Song’ Back:

David expressed it quite clearly in his prayer of confession:

Psalm 51:12:"Restore to me the joy of your salvation."

The Message paraphrases Psalm 51:7-12 this way:

Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.  Tune me into foot tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing.  Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health.  God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.  Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me.  Bring me back from grey exile, put a fresh wind in my sails.

Once the joy of our salvation has been restored, the singing of the Lord’s song proclaiming His love and saving grace will proceed from our lips automatically.

We’ll get back into the rhythm of His plan for our lives.  Remember He is singing over us.

Zephaniah 3:17: The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

Here’s a thought, what were the first songs you learned?  Probably they were the lullabies that your parents sang to get you to sleep. Barbie used to sing, “Yes Jesus Loves Me,” to settle our boys.

When I was a young boy my mother ran a community choir in our street.  She did this long before this was an idea to create community cohesion in sink estates.  She did this to take some of the kids off the streets.  I guess at its zenith the Linden Singers had 30 or so children and teenagers in it.  My role from about the age of four years was two-fold: to let little old ladies with no false teeth give we sloppy wet kisses and to tell the jokes in the middle of Lonnie Donegan’s, “My Old Mans a Dustman!”  Here’s one for you:

I say, I say, I say (What you again)

My dustbin's absolutely full with toadstools

(How do you know it's full)

'Cos there's not much room inside

Sometimes you’ll find yourself singing songs that your parents played when you were younger – even if you don’t like the song!

The point: we need to learn the song and the melody that Father God is singing over our lives and the words are written for us in the Bible!

• Songs of comfort (Isaiah 40:1)
• Songs of victory (1 Samuel 17:47)
• Songs of love (1 John 4:8).

When we hear the song we need to live its melody!

3.   Raising Our Shout

We’re going to look at Joshua taking Jericho.  I want us to briefly consider the power of the corporate shout; that which we proclaim to our city as a church body.

Joshua 6:2-5:  Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.  March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.  Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.  When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”

Joshua 6: 10: But Joshua had commanded the people, “Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!

Joshua 6:20: When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.

The power of a corporate voice:

If we want to see things change in our City then we have to ‘roar’ appropriately.  We can have real influence and be listened to if we follow simple principles shown in Joshua 6:

ü Unity: 5a: When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout.

Unity is something that comes out of a common purpose and goal.  We work together to see things change because we believe in the cause that Christ has called us to.

ü Timing: 10: But Joshua had commanded the people, “Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!

Ever been the one who sings at the wrong moment in a song?  You come in too early and then everyone looks at you!  I do it all the time. 

But timing is a critical thing in influencing our environment – we need to be able to say the right thing but also at the right time.

ü Appropriate: 20: When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed…

We need out ‘shout’ to the city to be appropriate.  We need to be able to shout blessing as well as the occasional rebuke.

Jeremiah 29:7: Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.  Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

ü Valued:  5a: When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”

Your ‘shout’ is valuable.  It is not the individual loudness that counts, but the corporate noise. 

If we shout on our won we seem like a bigot; when we shout together we discover a power in unity that is robbed from us otherwise.

Wrapping It Up

Have confidence in your story, your testimony.

Have faith that Father is still singing over you, learn the melody.

Have passion for your church and its ministry.

Raise your voice!