The Gracious Hand of the Lord - Luke Kennedy

Ps Luke Kennedy brings an encouraging message for Future Church called "The Gracious Hand of the Lord" - What God has done and will do for our community. 

Ps Luke shares form Nehemiah 8:10, Galatians 6:9 Nehemiah 4:16-18 & Nehemiah 2:18

We pray you’re blessed by this message—and we’d love to see you in person. Join us every Sunday at 10am. See you there.

--------------------------------
Future Church Brisbane  Website // https://www.futurechurch.io
Future Church Brisbane INSTAGRAM // https://www.instagram.com/futurechurchbrisbane

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:33

A ramit. Okay, how we doing fam? Are we good? Grab a seat, we're gonna get stumbled. Aramit. Who loves Josh's Christmas um sweaters? Christmas in July, let's go. Grinch. Everyone feeling good? Ready to jump into the scripture together? Amazing. Let's do it. I want to read from the book of Nehemiah. If you are kind of new to the Bible, it's in the Old Testament. It's a story about an engineer. So, Jack, others here, engineers, this is for you. Who are rebuilding a city, the city of Jerusalem, after it had been destroyed through war. And Nehemiah chapter 2, verse 17, we're going to read it together. Here we go. It says, Then I said to them, this is Nehemiah speaking to the people, You see the bad situation we're in, guys. I added the guys. How Jerusalem lies in waste and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let's build up Jerusalem's walls, that there may not be any more reproach. I told them of the hand of God which was good on me. Also the king's words that he had spoken to me. And they said, Let us rise and build. So they strengthened their hands for the good work. Today I feel like a little bit like Nehemiah. I want to talk to you about the good hand of the Lord that is upon our church right now. I want to encourage you that God is at work amongst us. That when we started this church, we had dreams and visions to see people's lives restored back to faith. For people to come to know Jesus in a real way. To create the kind of church and community that could be multiplied, not just in a place like this, but multiplied outside of this place. To welcome in the lost, to have a relational environment that that really is transformative through the power of the Spirit of God. And by God's grace, guys, it's happening. We're in the middle of it. It's happening all around us right now. We're a young church of you, you're new around here. We're only in our we're three years old, so we're we're a new church. But God is at work. And I want to observe some things that God is doing. I want to give us some cautions about what we need to protect, and then I want to talk about what's next for us. Sound good? Here's my observations. The first observation I see that the Spirit of God is doing in this community is there is a movement of joy happening. There is a movement of joy happening in this church right now, and I pray that you observe it, but not just observe it. I want you to experience it. I want you to receive it. Um, the joy of the Lord is our strength. That's what Nehemiah goes on to tell the people later as they build, when they're when they're celebrating the building of the work, he says, the joy of the Lord is my strength. And if you want to be a strong person in faith, joy is a big part of that. It's almost like you see a joyful person and you know that person has trust in God, you know that person's been through something. You can see the evidence of the Spirit of God at work in their lives. What we're doing with family worship, if you have um not been around for the last couple of weeks and you see what we call family worship, which means we're bringing all the kids to the front and doing um, like like Hugo tells me, Dad, do more fast songs in the church, please. Um something, it's a prophetic act of joy. It's a prophetic act of what the future will be. A prophetic act simply means that we are embodying and acting as if our prayers are already answered. We are living in a way of what we want to see the future to be. And we want the rising generation to know God, to know, not just know about God or a religion. We want them to know God deeply, to be passionate about God, and to lead in the church. Um, that's why we call it this youth ministry for the future. It's it's it's we're trying to build something for the future. Um, and not that they uh have like a junior Holy Spirit or like a like a like a B-grade version of Christianity. No, they can really know God now. And I hope you see that and feel that as they worship that something about that is prophetic. Jesus said, you know, if you guys don't start praising God, even the rocks are gonna start praising God. Well, I see that in our children, they are leading us in how to be joyful. When do we stop being joyful? When do we lose joyfulness? They are teaching us about joy, and that's a prophetic act. So that's the first thing that I see right now is God is doing a deep work of joy in our church. I think that's important because after COVID, I would say one of the things that I saw in the church in Australia was there was just this timidity and a lack of joy that was there. And I think one of the things that we really lent into was peace, and it was such a work of God. I think this place became like such a peaceful place for so many people. But then adding on top of that, God is like stacking now on top of that. Come back to joy, come back to celebration. There's so much to celebrate. I also see our worship is going deeper, and I want to just say that and honor our worship team and encourage you in encourage our worship team. Our worship's going deeper. It's not just singing a couple of songs, they are leading us into the presence of God, into experiencing God. And we know that that worship is not about just about the music. Um, worship is us, right? Worship is our heart, our lives, our embodied lives. But worship, but music often helps me. It helps me to forget about the things that are around me, it helps my nervous system calm down to the point where I can actually listen to God. Um, the music um gets past some of my intellectualism and it gets into my heart, into my soul. That's the power of music. Music is a spiritual thing. Music is a gift from God that gets beyond my mind into my soul. That's why we love jazz, that's why we love why you you want to move your hips when you feel funk music, right? It's because it bypasses something in your in your mind that when you feel it. That's what we are creating in worship. And say, Oh, we don't want to have any of that emotional Christianity. No, my I my emotions are part of who I am. Feeling things is good. It's good to feel God, it's good to get into the music and experience something. That's good, and maybe the music will help you bypass some of that. I also see that prayer is becoming the native language of our church. Prayer is becoming native, prayer is becoming normal, a normal part of our community, our lives, our our offering to God. Um, prayer is important. It's really important. And there's been a real, I think what I've observed in the past is a lack of confidence around prayer, and I can see that slowly changing to where prayer is becoming more native. It used to be a foreign language, and now it's becoming more native. To pray out loud, to pray with others, to pray over others. Have you noticed that we do lots and lots of praying over people in this church more and more? That's because we want prayer to be normal. It's a normal part of following Jesus, to pray over each other. It's it's a means of grace. Um, and I also am observing that boldness is beginning to match the humility of the church. The church has always been humble. It's it's humility is a real value to us. We value that as opposed to trumpeting, we're amazing, we're the greatest, look at me, look at it. That has never been a value here and never will be. But alongside of that now is this boldness is rising to match the humility. And in between that, it is the such a powerful place where God can really move. It's not humble and I have no confidence, it's not that. It's humble and let's get after it. This is not about us, but it is about God and we want to get after it. We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we're taking the mission of God really seriously. We're getting after him. And I see this with our young adults. There's a confidence in our young adults that wasn't there a year ago. It's really, it's starting to really build. I see that in when I hear stories like um like Mick running Alpha in his gym. Um, I heard about this. You don't know, you didn't know I heard heard about this, but I did. Um, running alpha in his gym uh with jujitsu people, so they cuddle each other with pajamas on on the ground and stuff, and then they talk about Jesus. What a wonderful thing. It's a little bit backwards, but it's uh it's wonderful, it's jujitsu. Um I see I see Josh doing that in his gym in his gym. Um I see people doing it, I hear about people running alpha in their workplaces with their colleagues at work in our church. I didn't know about this, and then I just suddenly hear about, oh yeah, I've been run, I'm in week eight of alpha, running it with my work colleagues. There's a boldness that's happening in the church that's growing to get on mission with God. It's not a church program, it's just who we are. We want to do this. Um, and I think why shouldn't we? Because the world is open right now. If you if you look at Facebook, Facebook's um some of you um Gen Z people, you don't know about this, but Facebook is a thing. And um, MySpace, anyone? Um Facebook's a thing, and if you go on there and you read, someone posts something, you know, maybe there's a news headline, Christians, blah blah blah. They're caught if you read the comment section, it is absolutely depressing. And I I was reading one the other day, I'm not often reading these things, but I was reading one, and I was just reading these bunch of like people in their 40s, just like a blast on Christianity. And I was like, come on, Australia, we're better than this. Come on, so depressing. Um, surely people don't think like that in real life. Next that same day, I'm I'm in the sauna at the gym next door to me. There's this couple sitting there, and they're speaking to each other, and the guy says to the girl, hey, my my my roommate went to church today for the very first time, and he came back with the tattoo of Jesus on him, and now he's like all in on this Jesus stuff. It's like wild. And then she says to him, She's like, Yeah, good on him, I respect it. Good on him, good for him. Like, he obviously needs his life change, and maybe this is the thing that's gonna really change his life. And he's like, you know what? I really respect it too. I'm thinking about it as well. And I was like, here's the difference between Facebook trash and then reality. This is the reality that's actually happening in Australia right now, is people are actually open to God. Don't believe what you're reading. This is actually what's happening in real lives of real people. And so, why shouldn't we be bold to share about Jesus with others when they're actually self-inviting into community and faith? Go for it. I want to encourage you uh to not to not quit though. Um, Galatians 6 9 has been such an encouragement to me, this verse. Let us not become weary in doing good. For at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if you don't give up. It's coming. Some of you are sowing and sowing and sowing, and you haven't seen the harvest yet. You haven't seen that story yet, you haven't seen the miracle yet. But I would encourage you to keep sowing because you will reap a harvest if you don't give up. God is on the move. So here's some cautions I want to just give us to protect what God's doing in our church as we continue to grow. Um, Nehemiah, the one of the next chapters, verse chapter four, verse 16. They're getting attacked from people who don't like what they're building. And it says, from that day on, half the men did the work while the other half were equipped with spears and shields and bows and armor, and the officers posted themselves behind the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did the work with one hand and held a weapon in the other. And each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. Meaning, this we're sort of we're building in one hand, but we've also got to protect in the other hand. We have to protect what God is doing. It's not from some foreign um enemy or someone trying to break into our church. Our church is like super safe, you know. Um, there's no one trying to beat down the doors or anything. It's not that, but it's more internal, it's more in our own hearts. So let me say this: don't grow small in your heart as we grow as a church. Human nature is for us to next one, human nature is for us to climb the ladder and then to pull the ladder up behind us. Meaning this, every one of us here would love to have a super friendly church. Why do we want a super friendly church? Because I want to be welcomed. I want to go to a really friendly church because I want to be welcomed. But once I am welcomed, and once I am in community and friendship, I cannot then pull up the ladder behind me and say, but now I want a small church where it's just me and my friends. Now I just want it to be us. I wanted a friendly church for me, but now I do not want a friendly church for you because you might come in and ruin the good thing that I have going. This is not evil, this is human nature. We are naturally fighting against what would come naturally for us. Does this make sense to you? Don't pull up the seat behind you. It's a small heart. Is there room for more people in your life? Some of you might say, I've got enough friends. I have enough friends in my life, I don't need any more friends. How blessed is that, by the way? How blessed so many lonely people in the world. If you're saying I've got enough friends, how blessed are you to even say that for one? Um, I remember when we had uh we had two we had two children, boy, girl, what a blessing. Like so thankful to have two children, even to start with. And we had a boy and a girl, and we just said, we're done. We are like complete family, you know, it's easy. If you go on like a cruise, they have you know rooms for two adults, two children, you know, all the stuff. It's like convenient. Two children winning. Okay. We thought we were done. We didn't have any room for any more people. And then after resigning from my job a week later, I found out Izumi was pregnant with a third baby, a beautiful, godly surprise, precious surprise baby. And and we were like shocked, oh no, what a what's what's gonna happen? You know, six years on, we've got a six-year-old and now we're pregnant. We're back into nappies. And we thought, what are we gonna do? We're about to go and plant a church, we're about to move country. And it's like, you know what happened? When I look at Kaylee, I cannot imagine our life without her. She's the crazy one in our family that brings all the joy. You see her jumping around, um, this venue, and she's the one who is so joyful. When I was at my sickest with cancer in bed, she was the one who would come and sit next to me and put her hand on and pray for me in Jesus' name and love me. And I can't imagine life without her. What happened? What happened was God stretched my heart, God made room to love one more time. I cannot tell you how much I love her. That love did not exist before Kaylee. Now my heart has grown to love her as much as the other two. This is the way that God works, guys. Please do not say to me, I want this to be small just so it's for us, because I can't, I don't have any more space for any more people in my life. Don't say that. That's a small heart. Let God stretch your heart to love another person around you again. There's so many people, and I know I'm looking at some of you, and I know your story, I know you've been hurt by relationships in the past, you've been hurt by and you're like, you just want to protect yourself. I get that. But here's the here's the thing as a leader, as the pastor of this church, I've been hurt before, my people. Um that's that's hurtful. But here's the thing someone's gonna walk in this door today. Do you want a pastor who's gonna go to them hurt and guarded and and not really wanting them? Is that the kind of pastor you want? Or do you want a pastor who has a free heart and is gonna treat every person walking through the door like they are potentially the next Kaylee in our family? Is that what you want? That's the way I am living, by the way. Every person walks to the door. I'm hoping we're going to be amazing friends. That's what I'm hoping. That's why I try to meet every person who comes to our church. But that's I say that to say not so amazing for Luke. I'm saying that as an example to all of us. That's the way we want our whole church to live, is we welcome people in the door like as if you could be my next really amazing friend. If you treat people like that, chances are you will find some really a year from now, I can tell you, a year from now, there's gonna be people in your life in this church that you could not imagine life without. I look at Sam and Sean. We're not even here a year ago, and now you just cannot imagine life without them. Beautiful people, generous, kind, loving, half the youth ministry. Amazing! Didn't even know them a year ago. I've not even met. Isn't that a blessing to live like that in the kingdom of God? That's that's my caution to you is don't let your heart grow small. Um protect it. Okay, okay, um, let's talk about what's next, and we're gonna finish soon. Expanding. What is next? I believe that what God is doing, I hope, is that God is bringing confidence in the church to our contribution to the kingdom of God in Brisbane. This church is part of the ecosystem of what God is doing in this city. We are a part of that. We have a contribution. It's not just here, but it's a contribution to the city, to the wider body of Christ, to what God is doing in our city. And I take that seriously. As a board team, as a leadership team, we are taking seriously the call that we started this church with was to plant other churches. We are taking that seriously. It's been the bullseye of this church from the very beginning. I think it was like one of the first messages I preached is we need to not keep it here. We need to plant other churches. Our goal is not to become the next mega church, as in the biggest church in Brisbane. That's not our contribution. Thank God for the biggest church in Brisbane. Great. That's not our contribution. Our contribution is to continually send our best people to go and plant new churches. This room is appropriately sized in that you can't fit a thousand people in this room. So, what are we going to do? We're going to send amazing people to go and plant new churches. And we're going to take it, we are taking it seriously. It's not a pipe dream. It will happen. So I just want to um ask you to pray into that. Maybe God would even stir your heart to go and plant a church in the future or go and be part of a church plant to start something new. It may not be called future church and it may not look exactly like this, but it's a work of God, it's for the kingdom of God. So I could talk all day about that, though, to be honest. The second thing I just wanted to say is that we are sowing into the rising generations. That is a really significant work of what's coming next in our church. Let us rise and build, guys. The rising generation. We love these young people. One of the things that I heard recently on a trip to KL to an amazing church there I was at, they had this slogan which I'm going to steal and say that I came up with it. But it's just, it the slogan is a teen on every team. A teen on every team. And what it means is teenagers need to be part of leading the church. Every generation needs to contribute to leading the church. And for for a little while, our young people have been, we've had a few like scattered things with our young people, and we haven't known what to do, we haven't been strong enough to start something, and it's it's just been a little wonky. But today marks a day where we're saying enough's enough, we've just got to call it and start sewing in. We've got to start somewhere, and we're gonna start. So part of what they're doing out there today, right now, is discussing where in the church they're gonna lead. They're gonna have a program not every week out there, we're gonna have some programs in the month, but also we're gonna have some times in the month where they're coming in here and leading the sound and production and cafe and kids and all of the rest of it. That's how much we believe in them. We want them to come and lead alongside of us, not as junior members, but as full members of the church. That's the future. Are you encouraged by this? I hope that this is inspiring because I I think it's really it's the future. Um so to do that, we really need to resource the rising generation. And this is what I'm gonna ask our church to do to prayerfully consider. In the month of August, we are gonna take an offering together and we are going to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to seeing the next generation come to know Jesus and lead in the church. Okay? This is this is a new thing, it's not in our budget. Okay? This is like an add-on to our budget, but we just feel so strongly as a board. This is, we need to do it. We need to put money into this. We almost we we we've done very, very few times in our church we've done like special offerings or like extra things, but we love these young people so much and we feel this is what God wants us to do. So, um, in the next month, I think I've got a I've got some good deep details here, but we next month we are hoping to together to raise $40,000, and a big part of that will be to hire someone to help us lead the rising generation. Okay, um, for kids and for uh and for youth to lead that. We've got to put our money where our mouth is, we've got to put resource behind people doing this. Okay. Um, so part of that's gonna be staff role, part of that's gonna be youth programming, uh, meaning it actually takes money to run programs, and part of it's gonna be to make our kids' programs better. Okay, if you've been up there, you've seen it's our capacity we need to to um invest into up what's happening in the future. We're kind of maxed out here, now we're building out here, um everything's getting full, but we're we're finding creative solutions to really push this forwards. And I believe that every person in our church has a part to play in this. Um it's not just the parents of those students. If you are a person in our church and you believe in the next generation with me, I would encourage you to give something into this offering. So please, when you give, please just write on there what it's for. Okay, you could write for youth or kids. Um, if you write something on there, in in that for youth or for kids, we will know what it's for. Okay? If you do not write on it, it just goes into general, um, our general local giving. Does that make sense, everyone? Please pray about and consider what God would have you sew into the next generation. It could be small, it could be large, each to their own capacity, but I believe together we could do something significant for the rising generation. Can we give God a hand for that? Okay. Amazing. That's gonna be a that's gonna be in August, okay? At the end of at the end of August, I will give some updates on how much we've given. So um that will be real time. Could I pray with us? All right. We see it, God. We part of our worship to you, God, is acknowledging what you're doing. We see what you're doing, we love what you're doing, and we want more of it. So, firstly, I want to pray for those people here who think you're feeling like I'm not really part of this. I'm not really part of what God's doing. You know, the devil hates you and tells everyone that same stupid lie. You're not really part of this. You're not unique in that. It's the same lie he tells me. It's not true. God has called you. Maybe you're here in Brisbane for a short time and and you think you're here for a job or a career or something like that. But I want to say to you, I believe from the Lord that you are not here just for a job. You are here to build the kingdom of God while you're here. To love this city, to build a community, to be a part of something transformative. So I invite you in. And I pray you today you'd be set free from that nagging thought of not belonging. You'd be set free from it. Welcome. Welcomed into the table. And I pray for those who are hungry for more, hungry for more of God, more of what He wants to do in our lives. I pray that you would be filled. You would be filled with the grace of God, filled with new vision, new excitement for the future. We pray over what's happening outside of this room right now, with our children upstairs, our youth outside. I pray, God, that they would be places and spaces full of the Holy Spirit. Your work, God, relationships, deeper understanding and knowing you, joy, God. We pray over those spaces, be filled with your spirit, God. Pray for those who uh are putting their hand up for leadership or see a need in our church and think, I want to do something about that. Gotta pray you would call them out of the crowd, give them a place of contribution in our church. And I thank you for the many people here who are incredibly generous and have the gift of giving. God, I pray you enlarge their hearts as well to give into a future where the next generation is strong and loves you and knows you deeply. And I thank you, God, for the many, many friends who are coming. Those who are not here yet. Pray over the empty chairs, God. Those who don't know you yet, those who are still to walk through these doors. God, I pray our hearts would be to love them deeply. Move us, God, stir us, get us out of our comfort zone to love those who don't yet know you. Open our hearts to them, not just to become friendly, but to open our lives to them. We just thank you for all those people a year from now. Amazing friends who you're bringing into this place. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. So good. So good. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for being such an amazing church. Um Laz and Rach. There's Rach right there. Laz up there dedicated their um their babies last week. I just wanted to shout out, um, just had you in notes. Many people would consider these guys very successful in many things in their lives. Um, Laz is annoyingly successful in many things. You know, good looking, musical, good at golf too. Incredible. So many good things. You know what? You know what the most amazing most one of the most impressive things about these guys is they're often the last people to leave the church on a Sunday. And it's often because they're talking to new people in the church, not just their buddies, but they're talking to new people, and they're often the last people out the door while their babies are like super needing a nap. And I think that is a picture of this church. Yeah? Amazing people in this church, but care about other people that we don't know yet. And I just think that is a model, that is an example to us all. So thank you so much for what you're doing. Thank you for those who are giving into our church. We honor you. Thank you. We believe in you. Um, I'm praying for you, God's blessing over you. Um, August. Let's make this happen, everyone. Let's make it happen. Amazing. God bless you. Have an amazing week. Open house starts at 11:30. Um, so talk to someone and then leave that conversation and come and join me in open house. I'd love to get to help you get into church a little deeper. Otherwise, I'll see you on Tuesday night here for prayer and creative nights. Or next week, we'll be back here. We're gonna do some panels on relationships next week. It's gonna be good. I can't wait. God bless.