Nothing Is Wasted

[Music] So we're going to look at a number of scriptures today, 1 Corinthians 1, Genesis, just run through a few verses as we go through our preach this morning. So here's the big idea today. In God's economy, nothing is wasted. Nothing is wasted. No one is surplus. You hear this morning, this is really good news, right? Nothing is wasted, nothing, nobody is surplus. The mission runs on what the world writes off. The mission of Christ runs on what the world writes off. In the first back to the future film, the machine runs on plutonium, you know this right, which is a very rare radioactive element. And this one has been stolen from a bunch of terrorists. Plutonium equals power for the elite of you. Very few people have the chance to get a hold of a piece of plutonium, and by the way if you do it, it's very very dangerous. And so you have to be fully, what's the word, coated up, in order to handle plutonium. But it's very very expensive element, few people ever would get a hold of it. But at the end of the film, you'll get a little bit of the future with the illusion, and tips in the banana peel and flat lager from the bin. We've got a video clip of that. The future. Wow, some of those haircuts and clothing take you back a bit, don't they? Here's what religion says, God runs massive, the qualified. That's what religion says. But the gospel says the kingdom runs on what everyone already has. Do you know the quality in the church? In fact, in every church is this. Mission is for the gifted. But the truth is, spectator seats may feel humble, but they're actually very expensive and they're very self-indulgent. And the truth is, you might feel like rubbish, particularly when you compare yourself to those around you. But God has always had a good plan for your life. We sang about that this morning. And when you bow your knee to the kings and to the Lord of lords, sign up. His process is. He has chosen you and called you. You sign up to His kingdom. How can we describe the kingdom of God this morning in a few words? It is very difficult to do this in a few words. I'll stab at this this morning. It's the heel of the world broken by sin. The spiritual and relational wholeness to the people around us. And in fact, to creation itself. It's to dismantle spiritual darkness, injustice and pain. And of course that's through the active reign and authority of Jesus Christ in and through us. What is the kingdom? It's to witness to God's presence now. And we do this final physical renewal of the heavens and the earth. There's a... We're going to restore all things and we wait with that with expectation. What is the kingdom? It's to be active citizens of this kingdom. And we do this by extending its reach through our daily living. See, church isn't just the Sundays. We do this. Church is also for Mondays. And of course the rest of the week too. What is the kingdom? It's to be active citizens of this daily living. It's to reach out to the classroom values of the kingdom. It's the love that is given us. Reaching out to others with radical forgiveness. You know that people find it hard to forgive and to forget. But we are to do the same as what Christ has done for us. He has chosen us and He's chosen to forgive. The Bible says He's removed our transgressions as far as the East is from the West. Radical forgiveness in our daily lives. What an amazing concept to bring to our world. Justice, humility, through this in our everyday relationships. What is the key is to help others restore their relationship to God and with each other. And we do this by acting as the ambassadors for Christ in which we've been called to be. What is the key? The marginalized, expressing the heart of God. And we do this by caring for the poor, by fighting injustice in the broken hearted. I could go on for one more thing, is to pray and worship. And we do this by aligning our personal design with the will of God. Remember what Jesus prayed in the Lord's Prayer? Your kingdom come, your will come. And first and foremost, we have to direct that toward our lives. Your will be done in my life. Who's for resigning? Who's for signing up for the kingdom of God? Nobody can not be changed by a platform. The future of knowledge, Norwich, is not decided by the Lord. It is decided by the prayers and united mission of us all, the people of God. Those who will stand up and say, "Use me, God, send me." Today, what's actually in the tank at a life? And whose fuel counts? See, God doesn't need impressive. Let's look at the first thought here this morning. Plutonium to banana peels. We saw in the video clip there that the diffusion no longer needed plutonium. What he needed now is anything and everything. In fact, rubbish out of the bin. The things that we discard, he could just use as fuel. Let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 26 to 29. Brothers and sisters, what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards, influential. Not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lonely things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are. And made boast for him. He called his right to the church of Corinth. And Corinth wanted plutonium Christianity. They wanted eloquent, they wanted status, wanted cadets. But so Paul said, look around the room. What a thing he said, look around the room. God deliberately chose the bin. What the elite considered was disposable rubbish. This played out directly during the early church's ministry. In 4 in fact, and verse 13, "When the elite Jewish religious council called the Sanhedrin, they lit the Littren John. They were astonished because they recognized the apostles were uneducated and ordinary men." I know it's relatively even master's, but many of us might feel uneducated today in terms of the elite. We're available for God and the good news is God can more than use us. God chooses us, uneducated, ordinary men and women. You know, the Sanhedrin could not deny the wisdom and power of the gospel spoke. They were simple fishermen that confounded the gospel scholars. What if Jesus was actually the most brilliant Greek philosophers? Or the most powerful Roman generals to lead the church? The spread of Christianity would have been attributed to ingenuity, to wealth, to military strategy. But by putting on remarkable flawed men and women, fishermen, teenagers, ex-laves, it became undeniable to them that the explosive growth, the power of the early church, was undeniably the work of the Holy Spirit. You know, God's not short of options. He chooses the foolish. He chooses the weak. He chooses the lowly so that no man or woman can boast because the power is unmistakably God's. The world's discard pile is God's fuel supply. See, the Holy Spirit is the one who leads us and enables us to do amazing things. We can't do anything other than by the work of the Holy Spirit. How about you and I can do lots of good things, right? We can achieve things. God made us in His image to do just that. But I want to say this morning, because of fallen mankind, because of sin, nothing that we can produce outside of the Holy Spirit has its real significance. Only that which comes through the power of God. In other words, all the glory goes back to Him. Seeing God's economy is wasted. Nobody is surplus. The mission runs on what the world writes on. I don't know if you feel a bit of a write-off, but listen, if so today, you can be sure that God can use you. He can use you in an amazing way. Number two, mighty warrior in a wine pit. Look at Judges chapter 6. We're going to look at verse 12 and 14 through 16. The preacher of the Lord appeared to Gideon. He said, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior." "So go from the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand." "I'm not sending you." "Pardon me, Lord," Gideon replied. "How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh." "And I'm the least in my asseh." The Lord answered, "I will save you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive." Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine pit, he's actually hiding, but God calls him "mighty warrior." God defines Gideon not by his current fearful circumstances, or by his self-perceiveness, but by the identity that God is placing upon him. God names the fuel before Gideon feels it. God names the fuel before Gideon says, "Gideon, I'm sending you, you're the fuel." He says, "Go in the strength you have." Not the strength you wish you had, you see it's present tense availability. I might have been available to God 20 years ago. 41 years ago specifically with the church, available to God. But you know God is more interested in present tense availability. It's not what we've done in the past that counts, what we do today that really counts. God is looking for present tense availability. Go in the strength you had, not the strength you wish you had. God doesn't need to become self-sufficient. He doesn't need to become powerful. It's God's presence. I will be with you. That's the sole qualification required to turn this terrified farmer into a deliverer of a nation. Listen, God's invitation means this. Start waiting for perfect confidence. Stop waiting until you feel able. Eat status. Start waiting for massive resources. Trust in the small measure of faith or ability that you possess right now. Jesus talked about faith being the size of a mustard seed. Small. That's all it needs to be. Go in the strength you have. Go in the strength that you have. Come on. Who's here this morning? Who's here as a mighty warrior? Because I know what many of us think and feel. Because I know who. What me, Lord? You see, we all know ourselves, right? We know our limitations. God isn't bothered about what we can do. We have weaknesses and limitations. He's concerned to make ourselves available to Him. God is able to make up the difference. Rise up, mighty warrior. When God spoke these words to Gideon, he felt completely empty. He felt weak, unequipped, anybody this morning. If God did not give him supernatural upgrade, he told him to move forward in whatever he already had. The strength you have, because God's presence would always supply what's needed. Remember George McFly? This is Marty McFly's dad. He's that very weak character in Back to the Future. He was the least likely man in all of us to stand up to the bully, Bith Tannen. But George McFly carried a hinge, I think today for some of us, a hinge moment, when God is just calling us, calling us to go in the strength. Marty wasn't able to help his dad to deal with Bith. You see, George's future depended on it. And finally after being provoked so many times, he cur times, he curled those five digits into a fist. And he swung his flesh round with all his might. And he floored Biff. He had the innate strength. He just had to. Come on. Who has the power of God at work within them? Come on, who has? Who's got the power of God at work within them? All of us actually, if we know and love Jesus, we've all got the power at work within us. In eight at times. But boy, it's there. It's just waiting for us to step out in the strength we have. Who today will rise with a fresh realization that God is with us? My goodness, we know it, though, and we's promise never to leave us, nor forsake us. How many of us will hear it till we actually start to live by it? Every step I take, I'm awake, right? God is with me, God is with you. It doesn't matter what you feel like, it felt a complete failure. Actually, it was a complete failure. Until that moment came, that inch moment where he killed his nine, not nine, five digits together into a fist and he floored Biff, the bully. Something changed in his future. And we know the story, seen all three movies. The last one we find that Biff is serving George, cleaning his car and doing whatever George asks of him. What a change. What happened to so many people in the Bible when they relied on the power of God at work within them? Rather than simply go with their natural feelings and their natural failings, their natural hangups. Believe God and take him at his word which we sung about this morning. Boy, did they rise up. Why are all those stories in the Bible? To inspire us as the people of God that we can be the same. We can rise up and be what God needs us to be. You might say, well, you don't know me. You don't know me. I am. You don't know the things that I'm doing wrong in my life. God does. Does He want you to stay that way? Absolutely not. Loves you. Calling you on to better things. Remember the story of Isaiah in the Bible. Isaiah encountered something of God, "Where was me? I'm a man of unclean lips." My mouth is not good. The things that come out of my mouth are not good. But God took a good look and put it on His lips. And He cleansed Him. And I put a moment on His lips, became ones of blessing. Listen, God has not got anything. There's nothing that has overcome us. The God by the power of the Holy Spirit cannot deal with and caused us to walk out free from into the purpose of the God for our lives. Listen, it's not just about your life, by the way. We are called to a mission to change the lives of people (audio cuts out) So we need to get our act together, right, church? We need to start believe what the Bible says (audio cuts out) called us to be and start to believe actually when we take one another by faith, that small master faith, (audio cuts out) and it can use us to change the lives of other people. Just like he did with the apostles, who were ordinary uneducated men and women. So too, with us. God doesn't call the qualified. He calls the qualified. You listen, God does not call the qualified. He calls the available. And his presence is the qualification. I will be with you. What more can I ask? Come on, number three. Every peal in the tank has every P-E-E-L. In the tank, four, ten. Each of you should use gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. How many of you know that each of you means there's no exact...you can't say, "Well, I'm not included in that." It doesn't mean me, but it does. Each of you. And then whatever gift. There's no ranking system. There's no gifts that are better than other gifts. Can I restate that? Because sometimes we think if we're cleaning the toilets, it's not as important as Phil standing up preaching. Let me tell you, it's just as important in the kingdom of God. God values those things in the same way. Whatever gift God has given us, it gives it to the glory of God. The text says, "As you have received," meaning no one is left out. Maybe some of us say, "Well, I don't know what my gift is. I encourage you to start somewhere." Do you know what I found? That if we get moving forward step by step, we will find ourselves walking into what God has given us. In fact, I believe this passionately. We cannot fail to find what God has for us if we will put one step out of the other. His word is a lamp to our feet. We looked at it last week. Listen, God just gives us enough light to make the next step. Why? Because He wants us to step out in faith. In other words, trusting Him to lead us and to guide us. I've found that sometimes you might think you're walking around in circles, but not straight lines. That's fine because God is still guiding us. Every person within the community of faith possesses a God-given capacity or talent. So Peter says these words are the same to us today, serve one another. God gives us, not for some status or for pride or for personal use even, gifts are explicitly given to serve others. See Peter here is declaring that we are stewards. How do you know what the word "steward" means? The nation of two Greek words, "Oikos" which means house or estate, which means to manage, to apportion, to administrate. So we are in trust with the master's property, to finance it with the master's resources to distribute them properly to the rest of the household. Who's the household? Well, it's at least the household of faith, but then we're to go further and we're to distribute them to those that don't yet know Christ. The word economics from. In other words, you own nothing. That car in the drive, that car in the drive, you own nothing. That lovely house you've got, or the garden, you own nothing. All that jewelry, everyone excited today, you own nothing. You're simply a steward of what God is. And the spiritual gifts that God has given us, He's given us and they belong entirely to God. We are simply the authorized. We have the responsibility to share what God has given us. See a faithful steward does not hoard the master's assets. And in the context of this verse here, grace must actively flow through each person's unique abilities, the needs of the surrounding community. You are here to be a blessing to the nations. Who's excited about that? We're here to bless the nations. And God has chosen us to do that. God has chosen the engine in order that we can show the manifest wisdom of God that's been given through people that are uneducated by the world's high standards, who are not the elites of society in order to change the communities of the region, the world around us. So Peter says in 1 Peter 4:10, "He is acting as a practical blueprint for living out the kingdom of God." And while God often chooses the weak and the ordinary, we saw in 1 Corinthians 1, he said, "To move forward in the strength they have in Judges chapter, strength is to be deployed collectively, cooperatively and selflessly within and beyond the community of God's people, to reflect God's grace to a broken world." From the live church, when serving this community of beyond with the revived cast with the food, with our welcome, the clean as the worship team, the maintenance team, all is worship. So when we clean the toilets, it's worship. We serve and the food bank is worship. When we serve in the right, right cafe, it's worship. Wherever the door is worship. Whatever God asks the grace to do is worship. We serve from a light church. We serve from our doorstep world. The same gift that serves the church can serve from your doorstep world. Wash your doorstep world is where you live. It's where you work. It's the gym you go to. Wherever you find yourself in the world. And we serve from our doorstep world in the communities and the work. Can I say this as we bring this to a close this morning? Serving isn't volunteering to help the church. It's way more than that. It's how the streets to live in are restored. It's how the city gets transformed. It's a duel in the tank to get us where we need to go. But above all it's worship. It's not the gifted few serving the watching many. It's the whole church in the tank. Let me challenge you this morning. What's in your hand? Two honest questions. Am I in the tank or am I observing from the sea? Look at this. What's the ordinary thing in my hand that God wants to use powerfully? God with your stewardship. How about choosing today to get in the tank? Have a serve on a tea? How about name yourself one area? Or one way that your gifts touch your full step? Today, if you've been with Antonio, please stop it. It isn't happening. Bring the peel. Become the fuel in God's hands that will both change your life and the life of the city. Bring what's in your hand and God will supply the power. It's not two weeks, the next three weeks. It's back to the vision, but it's forward for the city view. Whatever gift to serve our repeal in the town and watch what God powers within us. Let's pray, Lord God, thank you that you know me, that you love me, that you are with me and you are for me. Thank you for choosing me even when I wouldn't choose myself. Lord, your word says that you choose the weak things of the world to confound the wise. Right now I feel weak. I feel outnumbered or overwhelmed by this challenge of your sh*t, but I choose to stand on your promise. Like Gideon, I am stepping forward in the soul measure of strength I have, trusting you that your presence goes with me. I ask for your help and guidance. And open doors that no man can shut as I choose to step out in serving you both in the church and from my doorstep. In Jesus, just while I bowed for a moment. The kingdom of God is amazing, the kingdom to be part of, to know God and to be known by God. And I don't know today where your head actually made a commitment to follow Jesus, to give you the opportunity to come into your life, to meet you and you too, to know God. You know right now, God wants you to say yes to him. He wants you to forgive you for the wrong things that you've done and right before sin, not giving God a chance. He wants you to invite him into your life and to live in a relationship with him by the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna say a prayer, I'm gonna start off this way. Dear God, my name is Phil. Whatever your name is, you can put that in. And then if you say a prayer like this, I mean it for you, your heart. When we get to the end of it, I'm gonna pause and we're gonna say amen. I want you to just sing in that open. Give my life to Christ. And if you do, you can say amen. This is a prayer that God has given us. Let's pray this prayer. Dear God, I acknowledge that I need you. I need your forgiveness and your grace. I believe that Jesus Christ is your son, died on the cross of my sins. And that you raised him to life. Right now I open the door of my heart and invite Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. Forgive my sin and my shame. Wash me clean and fill me with your Holy Spirit. Guide myself so that God would help me to walk in your light and let your eternal peace take root in my heart and in the world around me I pray. Jesus, it's awesome. We've been that bread today, just saying, "Win me." Amen. Just why we remain just bowed for a moment longer. If you said that bread today and meant that bread today