Brick Church - Family Service

[0:00] This is a sermon from King's Church West I really really think that.

[0:31] And there's a couple of reasons for that. One of the reasons is that from just a small humble little brick, something like this, you can build something absolutely amazing.

[0:41] And in fact, do you know this week I found out that there is actually an artist who uses Lego as his media, as the way he creates. A guy goes by the name of, I've got a business, Nathan Sawaha is his name.

[0:56] Now why don't we see some of the things he's made. Of course you would. So here's somebody swimming. That's quite cool, isn't it? By the way, this is life size. Okay, so just a lot of Lego bricks.

[1:08] Okay, let's see the next one. Batman, any Batman fans here? Yeah, he looks pretty tough. An elephant. So he's made out of Lego, everybody.

[1:20] And what I've got is a, oh my goodness, look at that. That is terrifying. A tiger. Now the last one, this is probably my favourite one. Is this guy here? Just a guy sitting on the park bench.

[1:30] Why not? Okay, so he's just gone and he's made these things out of Lego. But, do you know, the thing that I actually really like about Lego isn't, well, what I should say is that I do wonder sometimes if Jesus, if he had come today, if he had come to earth, you know, in the 21st century, I think he might have had a little bit of a parable about Lego.

[1:51] Something along the lines of, you know, the kingdom of God is a bit like a Lego brick. It starts as something tiny and small and it can grow brick by brick into something so big it fills the hole of Legoland.

[2:04] Do you think? Maybe not. I don't know. Maybe let you just stick to the parables. But, do you know, that's not the thing I really love about Lego. The thing I actually really love about Lego is something that you will find on any Lego brick.

[2:18] In fact, I think every Lego brick. It's the little circly thing on the top. Okay? So, you might even have a bit of Lego in your hand perhaps. Just look at that little circly thing.

[2:29] The thing that I find so amazing about this little circly thing is that in fact I can maybe do with a volunteer. Max, perhaps you could come and help me? Could you come and help me, my man? Could you just stick these two bricks together?

[2:41] Okay? Can we see that? Yeah? And now just pull them apart. Yeah? Okay. So, that's it. That's all you have to do. Well done, mate. So, these little circly things make these two bits of Lego stick together but they're so easy to pull apart but in fact they're incredibly strong.

[2:59] And I want to show you how strong. Okay? Here we have, and I really hope this isn't going to collapse on me. Here we have a tower of a hundred, oh, one's just falling off, of 98 Lego bricks.

[3:13] Now, as you've just seen, a child can pull these bricks apart but you'll see that if I just hold the top one, it will actually carry the weight of all hundred of these. And I actually don't know how many more it would carry because I ran out of bricks.

[3:26] That was all the bricks I had. So, there you go. They are incredibly strong. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, that all sounds wonderful and good, Michael, but why on earth are you telling me about Lego bricks?

[3:39] Well, here's the reason. I want to read you something from the Bible. Can you sit down, please? I want to read you something from the Bible. Before I do that, it's from a book called, in fact, a letter in the Bible called Ephesians.

[3:51] Okay? So, Ephesians was written to a church in the city of Ephesus. Did everybody say Ephesus for me? Ephesus. Now, in this particular church, there was two groups of people.

[4:04] Okay? One was a group of people called Jews. Now, Jews were, they were God's special chosen people. They'd been chosen by God way, way back in history to be a kingdom, a priest, and show the whole world what God was like.

[4:19] And there was another group in this church called Gentiles. Now, Gentiles were basically everybody else. The people who weren't Jews. So, they, now, and this was the thing that was going on in the church.

[4:31] There was lots of Jews and there was lots of Gentiles in the same church. But there was a problem. You see, the Jews, because they had been, well, for around about a thousand years at this point, they had known themselves correctly to be God's special chosen people.

[4:48] They thought that they were kind of, they were better, that they were extra spiritual. They were more spiritual than the Gentiles and other people. And, of course, the Gentiles, for their part, they weren't too happy about this.

[5:00] And they thought they were, they were awfully stuck up. And they weren't willing just to be at one with the rest of them. They thought, they didn't really like them very much. So, the Jews and the Gentiles in this church, they didn't get on very well.

[5:13] And so, a nice man named Paul, who wrote a lot of the New Testament, decided that he was going to write a letter to them. And I want to read you a little bit of it.

[5:25] And here's what it says. This is what he says to these Jews and Gentiles. He says, now, you are no longer strangers and foreigners to one another.

[5:37] But you are, in fact, fellow citizens of God's people. And, in fact, you are all members of his family.

[5:48] You have been built on the foundation of God's servants with Christ himself as the most important building block.

[6:00] In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord, where God lives by his spirit.

[6:17] Rises just like that. Where God will live by his spirit. What are you saying to them? Now, Lego bricks, I've kind of given the impression they have some kind of magical thing about them.

[6:34] They hold together so well. The fact is, there's nothing magical about it. It's just some clever engineering design. But God does something that is truly amazing. He builds people together no matter who they are, where they're from, what they've done, how old, how young, how clever, how unintelligent, how whatever, anything you might think.

[7:00] God is willing and able to build us together into one building which rises together to become a holy temple in the Lord. Do you know what that means?

[7:11] A holy temple in the Lord? It means that God himself is willing to come and live with us. I just want you to think about that just for one second.

[7:22] God himself makes the offer that he will come and dwell amongst us and be with us if we are willing to accept that we are one together, equal in his eyes.

[7:38] Isn't that an amazing truth? So I'm just going to say three quick things about that and then I'm going to stop talking. Number one, everyone can be included.

[7:50] It doesn't matter who you are. Whether you're the youngest or the oldest, it does not matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you've done. If you are willing to follow Jesus with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength, that God is willing to include you into this amazing holy temple.

[8:09] The second thing, the chief cornerstone, the foundation. The foundation, it can only be and has to be Christ Jesus himself.

[8:21] It can't be anything else. It can't be a shared interest. It can't be whether, it can't be the people that you get along better with. If only Jesus himself is able to be the cornerstone of what we are.

[8:37] And the third thing, I've kind of talked about it already, but the third thing is that God is willing and makes us the offer to dwell amongst us together. Amen?

[8:48] Does that sound good? Does that sound something worth going for everybody? I think so. I think so. What I think we should do, I think Gordon's just going to come up and finish for us.

[9:00] Let's put in a miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle miracle