New Covenant Church, Hull

REVERENCE

JAMES 3; COL 3

SUNDAY 16-AUG-2026

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It is easy to perform reverence toward the sky. Anyone can lower their voice in church, bow on cue, and maintain a pious routine when life is quiet.

The true test of reverence is never vertical. It is horizontal.

You cannot revere the God you cannot see while treating the person standing in your kitchen with contempt. The scriptures do not ask you to pick one comfortable social box—husband or wife, master or servant—and defend your rights. They ask you to step into every box at once. Before Christ, you surrender. Beside your neighbor, you serve.

And when the world responds with unfairness, bitterness, or malice, the character test is sealed.

You do not hold reverence because other people have earned your respect. You do not return gentleness because they were kind to you first.

True reverence is not a transaction. You hold it in the face of disrespect because, regardless of what is done to you, it has become who you are.

CHRISTIAN

2 TIM 2; ACTS 11; JAMES 3.

SUNDAY 09-AUG-2026

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You can claim a title in two seconds on a demographic form.

Nobody in the early church ever did.

Jesus never called himself a Christian. Peter never used the label to introduce himself. The word was not an altar call confession; it was coined by pagan outsiders in the Syrian trade city of Antioch (New Covenant Church, Hull, 9 August 2026; Acts 11:19–26).

It took twelve full months of watching those believers work, trade, forgive, and live alongside their neighbors before the city invented a nickname for them: *Christianoi*—"like Christ." It was not a badge they pinned to their shirts. It was an empirical audit conducted by strangers who had no other way to describe what they were seeing.

A title is something you put on. Character is what you are when brushing your teeth, navigating a bad commute, or standing alone without an audience. A knight was a squire long before a ceremony conferred the title. The discipline preceded the name.

Christianity is not a Sunday morning peak; it is a moving average.

Something to chew on from the service: A Christian is not a title you give yourself. It is what people call you when your life forces them to explain who you resemble.

Full message linked. If this is as far as you go today, take this with you: do not live for the badge. Live the moving average.

JESUS.

ISA 53; LUK 18; MARK 10; MATT 19.

SUNDAY 2026-AUG-02

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You cannot see the colour black. Sight is reflected light, and black
is the surface that keeps it, so black is not something you see. It
is a gap in the things you do. Astronomers have the same trouble with
black holes. They find them by watching the nearest stars get pulled.

That is the tool this Sunday's message hands you (New Covenant Church,
Hull, 2 August 2026). The word was Jesus. He never stops in these
chapters to say what he is. So you stop looking at him, and you watch
what he does to the people standing near.

The method is subtraction. Three accounts of the same few days: Luke
18, Mark 10, Matthew 19. Discard whatever only one writer kept.
Discard whatever only two kept. Two things survive, back to back in
all three. Jesus blesses some children. Then a rich man comes
running, kneels, and is told to sell everything.

He goes away sad. And here is the turn. It was never that he was
rich. It is that his wealth was doing the work of telling him who he
was. So do to your life what was just done to those three chapters.
Strip the achievements. Strip the story. Strip the scars. Who is
left? That one gets in.

Something to chew on from the service: Prove your nature, don't rest on it.

Full message linked. If this is as far as you go today, take this
with you: come like a child. Come empty.

OBEDIENCE - THE FINAL MESSAGE

JOHN 10; 1 SAM 3;
MATT 6; 1 THESS 4.

SUNDAY 2026-JUL-26

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The word was obedience. The not-instruction was: reach God.

Rest. Be still. Reach God. Respond.

Not stopping. Not frozen. "Being still is about moving steady."

Reach God.

"Reach God. That's it. That's, that's it."

"The point is not to tell God something. The point is to listen."

Samuel heard his name three times before he knew whose voice it was.

"Here I am."

"Here am I, actually."

"Behold me."

"I am listening."

You ping. God responds. You still owe the response back, or the loop stays open.

"Don't leave the loop open. Close it. And keep going."

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OBEDIENCE - BE FAITHFUL

MATT 25; EXO 7

SUNDAY 20260719

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The word was obedience. The instruction was: be faithful.

"Have faith and a good conscience."

Conscience is not right or wrong. It is the impulse to pause. "What am I doing?"

"Are you doing it, or is it happening to you?"

If God gave you fifty thousand dollars today and came back in six months, what would He find?

Pharaoh. Judas. You cannot change God. You can only control yourself. "What would I do different?"

Even if you do the wrong thing, you say, "I did that." Not "this happened to me."

"Doing what needs to be done, not because, but despite."

Manifestation speaks it into existence. Faith works it out. Declare it. Work it. Prove it.

"It will not happen to you. It can. It may. But don't let it."

"Let us be vessels of Your will. Extensions of You, here on earth as it is in heaven."

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OBEDIENCE - SUBMISSION

MATT 8; 1 TIM 1

Sunday 12-Jul-2026

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Nobody asked Jesus to heal Peter's mother-in-law. He just saw what was wrong and changed it. She got up and served him. No request in the record, no gap between what she received and what she gave back.

That's the hinge of this Sunday's message from New Covenant Church, Hull (12 July 2026): obedience carried forward, submission named as the instruction underneath it. A l***r healed in four verses who's told to go show himself to the priest anyway, not because Jesus had to, but for the man's sake. A centurion who looks in before he looks out, and finds faith recognized in return. And a storm that reaches you even when you're doing everything right, because you're in a boat, not a submarine. Fear in that moment is valid. So is panic. The instruction isn't to talk yourself out of it. It's to recognize it, then be still.

Two questions get left open, on purpose: what do you turn to when you're empty, and what do you turn to once you've been restored?

Full message linked. If this is as far as you go today, take this with you: see more clearly, love more dearly, follow more nearly. Day by day. Step by step.

OBEDIENCE (REST)

PSM 119; DAN 1

Sunday 20260705

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The word was obedience. The instruction was rest.

"It is to slow down, and not stop."

He made the big oopsie on Friday morning. Phone. Twitter. A retweet. He felt grimy. Could not restrain himself.

Then Psalm 119:42 caught him. "So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me: for I trust in Thy word."

Six months. Six data points. Six months' worth of your life.

Remember. Reflect. Be refreshed.

Name your plan. Don't get attached. No plan survives first contact. Build yourself a scaffold. That is discipline.

Hope. Faith is what is left. Faith is trust. Then submission.

Expectation occludes ministration. You will miss the thing because you are focused on the shape it should come.

Can you take the next step?

"Help us to love You right. Make us something in You."

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WORSHIP

Heb 11; 1 Sam 17

Sunday 20260628

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The Pastor stood up on the last Sunday of June. He brought questions, not answers. What is praise? What is worship?

He sang a hymn. The last verse asked if He would refuse us a home in heaven. The answer came back different from the book. "No, He won't. No, He won't."

He asked why God gave Israel a place to worship. Then he said it. "The building isn't for God. The worship is."

Ground truth. Praise is what you tell others about God. Worship is what you bring to God. Different lines. Different directions.

He read Hebrews 11. Worship and faith are intertwined. Without faith, impossible to worship. They chose better by faith, not because it looked better.

Then David. Five smooth stones, no armor. This is worship. The declaration to Goliath. This is praise. The army arising. This is what worship does when done well.

The capstone. To know God and to be known by God. Contact. Fellowship.

"Please don't let us go. Please don't let us go."

May the testimony of your life be good. May it be God.

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TRUST, MERCY, & GRACE (RE:Tested)

MRK 5; EZE 5; EXO 3; LAM 3

SUNDAY 20260621

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Father's Day. New Covenant Church, Hull.

The pastor stood up and tested three words against four passages of scripture. Trust. Mercy. Grace.

Two nodes: God and you. The line from God to you has always been there. The line from you to God has to be established. He called it a handshake protocol.

Then he said something is still off. Two nodes are not enough for stability. You need three. The third was Others. Hidden in plain sight the whole time.

The instruction: Look in before you look out. You cannot control God. You cannot control other people. You can only control yourself.

The word he landed on was Hebrew. Hineni. Behold me. Witness me. Recognize me. Here I am. Trust, mercy, and grace, all at once.

Your life is a language. He said it twice.

What is it saying?