Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South
Australia. I'm.
Just going to share with something that I shared in the
in the prayer meeting just with us again, Visions 3, verse 10.
You know, this one, we've read it recently to the intent that
now the wisdom, the sorry, the manifold wisdom of God might be
made known by the Church to the principalities and powers in the
heavenly places. And so, you know, I was thinking
about that this morning. I was praying about that.
I was reading about that through the Church.
When the Church gathers, principalities and powers should
know that, that we know who God is, that we know something of
his wisdom, we know something of his might.
And it's on display to be made known that they could look in
and see that the power of God is at work in our midst.
And I hope that we're expecting today.
I hope we've have been expecting even as we've been praying.
You know, when we're sorry, as we've been singing, as we're
praising, we are making known to principalities and powers who
our God is, that he is victorious.
These scriptures that we read about what he has done and who
we are in him now as we as we know that and as it dwells in
our hearts and as we declare it and as we share it and as we
speak about it and as we pray about it, principalities and
powers know who he is, right? I think that's pretty cool.
So we're, we're, we're going to be continuing to unpack his
word. I'm going to ask Dudley to come.
Dudley is going to come and share the word with us this
morning. I'm not going to say he's going
to finish what he started last week.
Dudley's going to continue on and that's great.
That's fine. So please come.
I'm just going to pray for us. But I hope that we're expecting
that, you know, that God is speaking through this man.
You know, I know that he is. I know that the Lord has raised
this man up to to speak the things that he would have him
speak. I know that this man is
surrendered to the Lord saying, Lord, what do you want me to
speak? So he's not just coming with
stuff that he feels to come. He he's, you know, he could tell
you this himself, but he's prayerful in what he wants, what
the Lord wants him to say. And I hope that we're listening
within ear that's receptive to what the Lord's wanting to say,
because I am and, and I know that we are.
So let's pray together. Lord, we, we thank you that
you're with us in this place this morning.
We thank you for who you are, Lord.
We thank you, Lord, that that this church belongs to you.
It's your thing. We are blessed and privileged to
partake in in your thing. And it's an honor, Lord, to to
come under your word this morning.
It's an honor and a privilege to hear the manifold wisdom of God
and to be able to apply it into our lives.
So I just pray your anointing over Dudley this morning that
you would anoint him in a, in a, in a, in a mighty way, Lord, to
declare your thing and your your truth and your word in this
place. But the you would anoint us, our
ears and our hearts to receive, to receive from you today that
we would be changed, transformed to be conformed into your image
and not just as individuals as your church.
We gather together in as as your church to be formed and to be
shaped and to be led by you, Lord, we we are our desire is
for this church to be what you've called us to be and to
continue on the road that you have led us and are leading us.
So we just hand all of these things over to you, Lord God, in
the name of Jesus, by your Holy Spirit, Lord, do your work in
this place. Have your way in Jesus mighty
name, Amen. Thank you.
Well, good morning for those I
have and greeted this morning. We're looking at Ephesians 3
chapter chapter 3, verses 10 onward that David just quoted to
us that the manifold wisdom through the church.
Should be known to the principalities and powers.
And I try to answer the question why church attendance?
When we know the why, we can see the importance of what we do,
how we do it, etcetera, etcetera.
If we don't know the why, so often we're just going through
the motions. And I try to share with you that
in order to understand the why, why church attendance, why do we
attend meetings? There are two major things that
we need to understand to start with before we look at the
things that happen in church. What when the church meets, I
said the first one was that we need to understand that certain
things have happened over history, pressures in life
sometimes. And I said very graciously last
week weekend that it's not necessarily intentional.
Lots of these things happen just from the bombardment of life and
pressure, disappointments, discouragements and whatever
else goes on, pain and suffering and what we see around the
world. But there is a sense too, that
some of these things can happen because of rebellion, because of
unwillingness to obey God. This.
I gave, I think I gave 9 reasons and types of churches, but
they're actually 10. I left one out.
I can't go through all of them again, but if we don't
understand the one I left out, just for those who are making
any notes in their hearts or in their mind, they're scribbling
them down. There's also those that want
only power. We come to church for power.
We want power. So when we don't get the power,
we create the power. And we then have a false sense
of the fire of God and the power of God.
And there's churches all over the world that are doing that
every Sunday. So we need to understand how do,
how did all these churches come about, these church models,
these church kind of examples and that most every person
around the world, every church fits into one or more.
Of these these. Examples, but there's only one
that is biblical and it includes.
All the good. In all of those others, the
power, praise, pray, the priesthood, etcetera, etcetera,
all those things. If we we understand the
prophetic Apostolic or the Apostolic prophetic church.
So first of all, we need to understand why certain churches
do what they do and why there's so little happening in the world
as a result of it. If you think of it, if 12 men
could turn the world upside down and there are 10s of thousands
of churches around the world meeting today and so little's
happening, just stop for a moment and think about that.
Just in the city there would be hundreds of churches doing the
church thing. How much is happening in
Adelaide to change it? And when we understand why God
wants us to meet, that's when things change in a city, a
community, a country and change the nations.
When we understand why and then as if we understand why.
I'm talking about not here, I'm talking about understanding
here. When it gets into our hearts,
that's when things change. When it gets into our hearts,
that's when your home changes, your family life changes.
You. Most everyone of you will know
most of what I say this morning, but I want to ask you to just to
stop for a moment and think, how's that affecting my family?
How's that affecting my life? Etcetera.
Just be real with yourself. That's all God wants.
God doesn't ever come to make us feel bad.
We feel bad when we reject what God's saying.
God isn't the one trying to make us feel bad.
His conviction is loving. Anyway, I don't want to go into
all that. I've taken too long, never get
through this. So that's the first reason.
The second thing is we need to understand if we're going to
ever do what God wants us to do. See the reason for why we do
what we do in our church meetings.
We're going to have to understand what the Bible
teaches from the Old Testament and the New Testament, how they
conducted church meetings while it's not prescribed and that we
need to understand and remember there's no prescribed thing.
And yet so many of us have got a prescribed routine.
It just develops. Now there has to be some
organization or or some. We can't just sit down and say,
well, let's see. But there does have to be a
certain sense of let's see what's God going to do today?
It has to be a part of that. But you can't just come in and
say, well, let's just sit down and.
Be. Quiet, Of course, we'll spend an
hour doing that, and having been quiet, we'll all go home quite
disappointed. So we need to understand what
does the Bible have to say about it in the Old Testament and what
does the Bible have to say about in the New Testament and what
does the Bible have to say about it even in heaven?
For Jesus said in that model prayer, your Kingdom come and
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
And when we understand that church first and foremost, the
major thing for why church, why we have church attendance, is to
bring the King and the Kingdom into our midst in a different
way to what we experience alone with God.
And I'll come back to that hopefully later in this message.
So that's the first thing. Remember this too, that what
happens on a Sunday in a church, if we're going to do what God
wants us to be doing, if we're going to be doing it the
biblical way, whatever happens here is going to have global
ramifications. By that I mean, there's a lot of
things that I can't cover, but one of them is going to be that
we're going to be equipped to do the work of the ministry.
And the work of the ministry, major part of it is to go to the
nations, not just meet on a Sunday and go home, have lunch
and forget about it. But God equips us when we're
together. If we're doing it the Bible way,
if we understand why God has called us to be together, it's
for the equipping of the Saints to do the work of the ministry
that Ephesians 4. And that's going to have global
ramifications. It's going to touch other parts
of the world because one of those things we do, and I'll
come back to this in a moment, but God wants us to gather
together as a church to pray. And when we pray the way Jesus
wants us to pray, like he taught us to pray, and like he himself
prayed. For the world.
For the nations. Then that has.
Global ramifications it touches nations so having and I hope I
can come back to this thing about in heaven as on earth
because as you look at the Book of Revelation I'm hoping even if
I can't read them I'll give you a few of those scriptures soon
about. How?
They worship in heaven and Jesus said on earth as it is in
heaven. So there's lots we can learn, we
just don't have time. It's, it's a sad thing.
We have an hour, hour and a half, once a week by and large,
to try and unpack what God's hearts is for his people.
So you just got to sometimes rush through things.
But let's just move on quickly and I'll start to try and give
you those things that I, that I've felt God has shown me and
I'm hoping you'll catch with me. So the first one then is to
encounter Jesus, see the Kingdom come and His will be done here
on earth. We come to have a life
transforming encounter with Christ, to be involved in His
purposes and His plans, and He reveals those purposes and plans
to us. When we meet.
I'm going to stop and ask a question.
Last Sunday and the Sunday before and the Sunday before.
Just take the last three or 4. Weeks.
What did God reveal to you about His purposes and plans?
If you say nothing, then that means your heart wasn't open to
Him. You were going to church and you
were sitting in your seat and you were doing what you've been
doing for years and nothing changed.
So I don't want to say this unkindly and I don't want to say
it too strongly, but in a very real sense, you.
Wasted an hour. And a half not fully.
Are you listening to me? That's not a condemnation.
I'm just God's trying to catch our attention.
This little church he really wants.
I don't when I pray for us, you, I pick up this thing and God
says. You don't know how.
Precious those people are to me, and I've got such an important
role for them to play in the internal things across the
earth, as small as they are right now.
So we come first of all to encounter Jesus, the Kingdom,
the King and His Kingdom. Secondly, we come to worship
God. And I try to share last Sunday
that worship is an all-encompassing thing.
Worship is something that happens in the heart.
God is a spirit and they that worship God must worship him in
spirit and in truth. And the truth is the word of God
and truth is Jesus. So we've got to do it according
to the way Jesus did it and the way that Jesus teaches us from
his word to worship God. And there's a scary verse
actually that I want to just read to you.
It says, and I, because I'm saying to you that it involves
our hands, our mouths, our hearts, involves our intellect.
It can sometimes involve jumping or bouncing or dancing or
whatever else. And I'll come to that in a
moment again too. But there's a scary verse and
it's in Isaiah chapter 29, verse 13, which says this.
Then the worship of me is made-up of rules taught by men.
So I can say, raise your hands and praise God, clap your hands.
I can say let's all jump, dance, bounce, let's run around the
meeting hall and we can do it all.
And yet it's just a rule if it's not coming from here.
And when God can explode in here, we begin to want to do
these things, not because others are doing it or the leaders are
saying, come on. Like we used to say, not me
personally. I don't hope not, but 20-30
years ago, give us AJ, give us AE, give us AS, give us AU, give
us AES. What does that mean?
Jesus G And we're trying to whip the crowd up.
It's rules made by men. It's got to come from here.
And it's all encouraging. You know that the word worship,
I've written it down here that word worship is used 95 times in
the Bible. Worshipped is we're used 67
times, worshippers twice, worshipping five times.
That's a total of 174 times that the Bible talks about worship.
I mean, that's important. You guys.
You know how important it is to be born again.
Read through the Bible and try to find out how many times it
says you must be born again. Worship 174 times, born again.
So important worship. You get the picture.
How important it is that we worship God.
So worship is an attitude or an action that gives God first
place in our hearts. It's an attitude, but it's also
an action. I'm going to move on because
I've said some of this stuff before.
Some of the expressions, the most beautiful expressions of
that worship are in the in the New Testament.
I'm going to ask if we have these verses.
Revelation chapter 4 verses 8 through to 11.
This is how they worship God in heaven.
Each of the four living creatures had 6 wings and was
covered with eyes all around, even under his wings.
Day and night, they never. Stop saying.
Holy, holy, holy. Is the Lord God Almighty, who
was, is and is to come whenever the living creatures give glory,
honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and who lives
forever and ever. The 24 elders fall down before
Him who sits on the throne and they worship Him who lives
forever and ever. And this is a beautiful thing.
They also cast all their crowns down before him.
Now there's so many crowns. There's a crown of victory, the
crown of righteousness, all these different crowns.
And one day when we stand before God, God's going to say, David,
you were faithful with these things.
He has a crown, Peter, he has a crown.
And then I believe we will join with these angels and they won't
be on our heads walking around. So wow, look at the crown I've
got. I've got about four of them.
You only got 1. And you guys who didn't live all
out for Jesus, you got in here by the skin of your teeth.
You've got no crowns. But look at me.
No, everyone will just cost him down before God get the picture.
Everything's for Jesus, even the rewards that God gives us, every
one of them is because of Jesus and for His sake.
So let's move to the next scripture in the Book of
Revelation, Revelation, that one is worship, expressing God's
holiness, His power, and His glory.
The next one, Revelation 5, verses 8 through to 14.
And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24
elders fell down before the Lamb.
Each one had a harp and then they were holding golden bowls
of full of incense. Incense in some senses as
prayer, but it's also the just the Thanksgiving and the praise.
You see both of those in the Scriptures full of incense,
which are the praise of the Saints Here it tells us that.
And they sang a new song. Now in heaven they don't only
sing the songs Peter had for us today.
They sing new songs. Now.
You stop and think about that because it's in the book of
Ephesians 2 about singing songs and ministering to one another,
etcetera, etcetera, songs, etcetera.
But a new song can be while we're using the words that or
the tune that the musicians are playing, we can break out into
other parts our own songs with the same tune that the rest of
the congregate. That's what God is looking for
in His church. God is the God of creativity.
He. Doesn't want us to be restricted
to just the words of a song written sometimes 24500 years
ago. As true as it is, he wants new
songs to come out and there's not one of us, no matter how bad
your voice is, that Can't Sing while we're all singing just
your song to Jesus as a new song.
That's not the, I don't want to restrict a new song to that, but
I just want to give you some creative ideas of what can
happen here. Why restrict yourself to just
that that we see up there on a Sunday, excuse me, when we can
be having all these creative expressions within our hearts
coming out all right, so they sang.
This is how they do it in heaven.
They sang a new song and they said you are worthy to take us
the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain and you
with your blood, you purchase men for God from every tribe and
language and and people and nation.
Now just let me stop and say every, almost every day I sing
to God about the blood of Jesus. Oh, the blood shall never lose
its power now, never now, never Jesus blood avails for me
forever and shall never lose its power.
I sing that in the mornings, reminding myself and reminding
God and reminding the powers of hell that the.
Power. Of the blood they did it in
heaven. With your blood you purchase
men. Next, next little verse please.
You have made them to be a Kingdom and priests.
Just think about that when we're singing new songs.
God, you've made me a Kingdom of a priest.
You've made me a Prince. You've you've, you've got.
I'm the son of the king of all kings, the king of the nations,
not only priests, but to serve God, and they will reign on
earth. Then I looked and I heard the
voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands and 10
thousands of times 10,000 They encircled the throne and the
living creatures and the elders in a loud voice.
Now I'm not one who likes screamers.
I don't like God standing up. You know what God says.
I've never actually heard God speak to me like that.
Tell me I love you. Imagine me saying a turn and man
do I love you. Even that mother has to take the
baby after you get the picture. And yet some preachers feel like
that's how you got to talk to God and that's how you got to
talk to God's people. I'm now I'm, I don't know what
you're hearing the, the volume here anyway, but they give him
wood to receive power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor and
glory and praise. So in that one you see worship
expressing prayer, salvation, expressing Jesus, etcetera.
I would now I'd like to read the others.
I'm going to just give them to you.
If you're making notes, Revelation 7 verses 10 through
to 17, maybe you can put them up.
I'm not going to read them. And then Revelation 11 verses 16
to 19 and then Revelation 710 to 17.
They're emphasizing salvation in their singing and their worship
and their praise to God and they envy the nations and
deliverance. In Revelation 11/16 to 19, they
emphasizing worship, emphasizing God's power, his authority and
his reign. Revelation 15 verses one through
to four and then verse 6. It's about power, the nation's,
the righteous acts of God and glory.
All of these, if we had had time to read them all, would show you
that this, this is what worship includes.
Then I'm going to just give it to you quickly.
Again, adoration, these are all coming out of the Old Testament,
Psalm 149, Psalm 150, etcetera, out of the New Testament as you
read through the Scriptures. And then this year in heaven,
there's adoration, this praise, this Thanksgiving, this
proclamation, this declaration, this humility, this shouting,
this clapping, this dancing, there's kneeling, there's
singing, there's service, there's silence.
Psalm 46, verse 10, Be still and know that I am God.
All of these encapsulate what worship is.
And all of these should take place on a Sunday to some extent
from Sunday to Sunday somewhere along the line.
All of these things should be part of what's happening in a
church that is doing it God's way.
Now, if you sit there and say, count me out, you're in one of
those nine of the 10 models of church.
That's the bottom. Line.
You're not in that. Apostolic prophetic that God is
wanting the Church to be. Does that sound ungracious?
I hope not Jehoshaphat when he went out to war.
What did he do? He put the praises, the
worshippers, the singers out front.
When Paul and Barnabas were, when Paul was in prison, what
did he do? Midnight, I think Acts 16, he
began to just worship. And what happened?
Prison doors shook, they opened. The jailer almost was going to
commit suicide. That's in the the dirtiest,
stinkiest, filthy, polluted prison where the prisoners were
above one another and they would urinate.
The bowel movements just gather on the floor.
Nobody cleaned that up. They were in the and that would
be dropping down, down, down, down in all of that that none of
us has ever experienced. They sang praises.
What are you trying to say? No matter what your
circumstances before you got here this morning, you can still
join in and sing and praise and worship God no matter what.
All right, let me see what I can leave out here. #3 So we come
first of all. To encounter God, Christ, the
Kingdom, King and the Kingdom. Secondly, we come to worship.
Thirdly, we come to hear God, to hear from him.
That's why we need to preach the Word.
Now why? Do we need to hear God?
Why can't I just hear God at home?
Why do I have to come to a meeting to hear God?
I'm going to try to explain a few little things to you now
that I hope you will grasp. Let me just.
Do it my way, even if I'm not answering the question
explicitly right at this moment. I hope you'll get the answer.
As I talk, you come to hear from God because first of all, God is
a speaking, communicating God in the book of in the Bible, in the
book of well in in the Gospels and especially in the Book of
Revelation, God kept on saying he that here has an ear to hear.
Let him hear what the Spirit is saying now.
Very often the Holy Spirit is able to say things in a meeting
when we're together that he cannot.
You would not listen to if you are just alone with God.
That's one of the reasons why we need to come to a meeting to
hear God. There's certain things that we
have already shut our minds out to totality that you've got no
option to listen to and hear and then respond one way or the
other, yes or no in a meeting. Now that puts an onus on us that
preach then we need to be sure we're preaching what God is
saying, not just what God has been saying to us about our
lives, but what God is saying to us as a church, not David
Dudley, whatever you, the preacher is US.
Because I find that other these 50 odd years that I've been so,
so often, the preacher preaches what God's dealing with in their
life and very seldom, but thank God sometime, very seldom do
they preach what God's saying to us.
That's why so many people go home still empty, not empty in
the wrong sense, not getting what God wants, not hearing God
speak. They can't go out and say God
spoke to me today. So it puts an onus on the
preachers, especially those in the leadership.
I can, yeah. My wife will bear me out.
When we pray, I ask God, God, don't let me speak things that I
that are not from you. And then help me to speak
things, even if I haven't thought of them, that are from
you. For the people.
I don't want to preach superfluous things, even if
they're true, even if they're in the Bible.
But they're not for us today. God wants to speak to us.
We should. Come here and get out.
A lot of our problems, perplexities sorted out sitting
together. Now God can do that alone.
But as I said so often we're not open to it.
So God calls us together. Let's so we come to hear God his
word and preaching does that. Paul says I'm not shunned to
preach to you the whole or to declare to you the whole council
of God. So we've got to be sure that
we're covering as leaders, as preachers, even if it's Bible
studies, Sunday school teaching, whatever the case, we've got to
cover the make sure we're covering the whole gamut of
what's in Scripture over certain period of time, not just
favorite subjects. And you see, we go back to those
nine models that are not good. They cover certain favorite
subjects, but not the whole counts.
How seldom do we preach on hell? Thank God he preached.
David preached a little while ago on hell.
I don't like the subject, but Jesus had a lot to say about it.
There's so many things we don't preach about because why?
We'll offend the people. Moving on.
How does God speak? He speaks first of all through
preaching, teaching. Got to hear what God is saying.
Second, he preaches, he teaches, he talks to us, speaks to us
through the gifts of the Spirit. That's why it's so important.
How is it in One Corinthians 1426?
How is it then, brethren, when you come together, every one of
you has, and then he tells us these different gifts and
ministries. So we got to understand it's
very important that we listen to what others are saying, not only
the preacher here, but it's also very important that you and I
come with something, even if it's just something for one
person. And we've got to.
Ask God to help us to discern the difference between what you
want me to say to one person in the meeting and what you want me
to stand up and say so that all people here now, none of this
happens like that. When we get to sun, we begin to
understand. When it begins to get here, we
begin to develop this and it gets stronger and stronger.
But this may not happen overnight for you.
But don't be discouraged, keep on hearing and keep on obeying.
And can I just say this lovingly, if someone brings
something to you privately in the meeting, during the meeting,
after the meeting? You see, you can't interrupt the
meeting. Paul actually said that if
someone gets another revelation, the one who's speaking needs to
stop. So I was used to encourage the
people in that church. Just put your hand up if you've
got something that we need to hear together and the one who's
speaking needs to stop and give that child person a child.
But that also you don't have to stop if you've got something
just for one person. Alan might have something.
He wants to come in here and just just get up and ran
whispered in his ear. And we've got to be as a
congregation, grow up enough to say I'm not going to be put off
by that. Now, there's a difference
between that and being, because it happens in our church.
I'm going to mention this. And so you don't have excuses.
There's a difference between a screaming child and somebody
getting up and ministering to someone.
Else. Big difference.
The one is disruptive and there's not much you can do
about it if you're not the parent, but it's not disruptive
if suddenly you get up and say something to David and sit down.
And one tendency if I'm leading is to say what's going on here?
And somehow we've got to ask God to not let it interfere with us
that way. Just we beginning to understand
God speaks to us through the gifts of the Spirit.
So it's publicly and it's personal.
Amen. You get that God's agape, agape
love holds no record of wrongs done by anyone else.
Now that's for all of us. Which means somebody must be
doing it. You see, You see what I'm trying
to say? Now, if that was false, the
leaders have to stop that and say we ignore that.
That's part of our that's what it's about.
We don't let stuff just get said.
And then act. Like that was God.
That's not the priesthood of all believers.
And I, you've heard me say this lots of times, so many times
people who are feeling unloved get up and say this is what God
says is not enough love yet. No, that's not what God's
saying. That's what you feeling.
And then for David to stand up and say, all right, we better
start loving each other better. It's just to have given in to
the devil, bringing condemnation.
Are you beginning to understand what can happen if we come to
the meeting understanding what God wants us to do?
Now I'm never going to get through this message because I
think I've got 20 something points and I'm on .3.
His thing speaks also through psalms, hymns, spiritual songs.
Can you put up Ephesians chapter 5 verses 19 and 20 quickly to
me? For me, please?
Now listen. God speaks to us through psalms,
hymns, and spiritual songs. Those are not the ones necessary
that we sang before we started, before the preaching came on.
Speak to one another. Stop and think about that, Oh my
son, God says that's what God wants for us, to speak to one
another. My daughter, why are you so
confused? Family, Why?
You get the picture. Can I ask you?
I've got to ask myself this regularly.
Did I come with that expectation for God to use me even if I
Can't Sing? I remember some of those songs
that Mike introduced to sing from time to time.
They penetrated the hearts. He just, he wasn't preaching,
just sitting in the congregation.
Suddenly we just break out in song.
Do you think that God could do that with you?
Take a song that's in the Scriptures and sing it.
Bless the Lord. Oh my soul and all that is
within me, bless His whole, His holy name.
Why? For He has done great things,
etcetera. Now that's a song that we all
know, but God can give us Psalms that we can dare to be.
And if we don't dare to sing, and can I just say at least
speak it out, read it out. I'm just wanting to change our
meetings for God's sake, not for the sake of change.
Just what does the Bible say? How?
Can we do it more? Like God's Word says, look at
the time, Make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving
thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And so that scripture goes on.
I'm sorry, Colossians chapter 3 says let the word of Christ,
verse 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in
you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all
wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and.
Spiritual songs with gratitude. So we minister to one another
songs that minister, that teach, that instruct, that give
guidance. Anyway, I just wish I could
spend more time. Here.
Another way that God speaks to us is through the prophets, and
from time to time as our church develops and grows, we'll have
prophets come in and they will prophecy.
And generally to me, just so that we don't get carried away
on this one, the prophet normally confirms what you
already know is beginning to happen in your life or through
your life. That's what happened with
Agabus. He came to Paul, I think it's
Acts 21, and he prophesied what Paul was already knowing.
They don't always tell us this is what's going to happen.
As much as confirm what God wants, they can sometimes tell
us. Don't want to rule that out.
I'm just trying to massage this whole thing into us that we hear
what God's trying to do in our midst.
And can I say this, that all may prophecy.
Paul says that now that's the gift of prophecy, but it's still
prophecy. It's not the office of the
prophet. Anyway, God speaks to us through
prophecies and prophets. Another one that I think that
people don't understand much is that God actually speaks to us
just through general conversation.
Now, let me, let me just, I know I've said this once before.
Yeah, or maybe more than once. If you come in here and say, did
you watch the 30 Sixers last night and they got beaten?
And if you were the 30 Sixers, I'm talking about the basketball
the 30 Sixers lost last night. And if you were 30 Sixers
supporter immediately, that just depresses you.
Or the Crows did this and the Port Adelaide did that or
whatever it may be. Or I went to out to lunch and I
did this, or I was sick of blah blah, all these things.
None of those things, Minister life, they may be true.
God wants us to come and have more of our conversation around
Christ and the Kingdom when we come together.
That's what fellowship is. It's 2 fellows in the same ship.
You get it. We talk about everything else
but the stuff that God wants to minister.
That's why people don't get ministered to through the
conversation. That's why certain people try to
avoid certain people. Not because they don't like
them, they just don't want their minds filled with the wrong
stuff. Negative stuff.
If we now look for again, can I say that's not going to happen
overnight. This could be 6 months time.
It's still happening, developing in our midst.
I don't want to put in anyone off and say this is too hard.
I might as well not even hurt, you know, open my heart to it.
So he speaks through conversations.
He also speaks through just contributions we make
financially or just a little something, A chocolate given to
someone or just $10 put into someone's pocket.
I don't know why, just sometimes that's exactly what God puts on
people's hearts. When you see Peter, give him
this. Don't let anybody.
Else see it. So you walk up and slip it in
his hand. That says something to Peter,
who's been going through a hard time say this isn't true for
him. Right now I'm just using him as
an example. It says to Peter, I understand,
I know, God knows I care for you, don't worry, I've got it
under control. It's all in my hand.
I've got you cut you, you're back covered.
Sometimes I've walked and young people have said you are in my
heart before through the week. Just want to tell you I'm
praying for you. And God knows I needed that
word. It doesn't have to be money.
It can be a cake, it can be just foods.
I remember when we were in one of the churches that I used to
be part of, one of these Asian ladies used to very regularly
just bring Anne a nice Curry. So this is for you and Dudley.
She said something to me. She wasn't a personal friend.
We didn't hang out together. She just felt touched of God.
And God said, I know what's going on, I know what you like,
I know what you need. I've got it all in control,
under control. I'm sure that there's some of
you here that that would be very meaningful.
I struggle with the scope of the term prophesied to one another.
Would you mind? Are you speaking about that now?
Are you talking about these are these actions of prophecy of
these actions? What are these actions and what
is the What is the action of when the Bible says prophesied
over one another? What?
What's the scope? Of that if you have time for it.
Because I don't, I don't, I don't grasp that concept other
than you will do this and you will do that or this is going to
happen to you. Is there?
Is there a broader? Well, the gift of prophecy is to
encourage, to build up, to strengthen.
So you I may prophecy over him, something that encourages him.
That's the gift of prophecy. The prophet will prophecy
something that's more solace stronger than that and about
some issue in your life like Agabus said, the man whose belt
this is, this is what's going to happen to you when you get to
Jerusalem. That's the that's prophet, the
office of the prophet. But the gift of prophecy is post
things that let me just say it's not just I want to encourage
you. It's something God prompts in
your heart. It's not something I thought
about at home that can be the priesthood of all believers.
I come and read a scripture, something that I've got from God
at home that I feel is for the body.
But prophecy, most of those gifts are spontaneous.
They happen while we're. In the meeting.
Not planned, not written down as much as there can be value in
those. That's what it is.
Thank you. It's not very valuable.
Thank. You all right, Moving on
quickly. The fourth reason we come how
while we have meet you, I look at the time just to pray and I'm
going to say I'll finish with this one.
Just say what is pray the pray that God wants us in the church
in our meetings. God wants us to confess.
His promises and God wants us to claim His promises for us as a
church. He wants us to confess his
promises for people that are sick, discouraged, black, sudden
claim them. It's not you know, you, you look
at how often Jesus and his disciples prayed.
You look at the prayers that Doug Paul prayed.
That's what God wants us to be praying, praying for one
another. This is the place where we
should be able to pray. Now I feel like I'm a bad
example of that because this is what this is part of my problem
is that I felt God. So when I came to this church
not to be always making some statement to try to lay back, be
in the background. God wants to develop a church
here that is not the church that I'm leaving, a church that's
built around the gifting of the men he ran, women he raises up
in this this church. So very often I feel I'm saying
things that I'm not doing myself, but it's generally
because I'm trying to obey God and I've got these 50 something
years of experience. People think I've got it all put
together. And people, sometimes it's not
foolish enough to believe that what I'm saying is stronger than
what the gifted leadership that God raised up in the church is
saying. So I feel like God's given me a
just a little kind of a pattern to be careful.
But don't let that be your excuse.
If Dudley doesn't do it, I'm not going to have to do it either.
You hear what I'm saying? God wants you to pray.
David should not have to ask us, is there anyone who wants to
pray? He should be sitting and saying,
sit down. We've had enough.
Not quite those words, but. Too many.
Prayers a Table in the Wilderness.
It's a devotional book by Watchman Knee.
And yesterday the reading was Watchman Knee was thick.
So he had the the big prayers in the church.
Come pray for him. And nothing happened.
And he used to look down his nose at the wicked people in his
church, but then one day they came and said, we pray for you.
And they got on their knees and prayed.
And the people that he looked down on, the people that were
weaker, prayed for him and he was healed.
And that's why I think he thinks that there are some people that
are the professional prayer and, and we might not even know how
to pray properly and we feel weak and but God wants to pray
and it's the prayer of faith that doesn't matter how weak you
feel you are or. Or.
How we could feel your praise of faith in God brings on such a.
Prayer. Amen.
All right, I'm not going to abuse you any more than I have.
It's already 10 fast, so I'm going to hand over.
But can I just pray for you before we do?
Again Father, we thank you that heaven is full of people because
people prayed and because Jesus prayed and he set us the
example. And I ask in Jesus name, I pray
with these people and we stand in agreement.
And you said if two shall agree as touching anything in heaven,
you promised the movie granted us.
We asked together, change our church, change our hearts
individually, and change it in our togetherness.
Let it be that we come here to really do what the Bible wants
us to do, that we grasp, we understand, and we begin to live
in, embrace, participate in, obey what your scriptures teach.
So I commit this precious group of people to you.
Lord, we belong to you. Some of us are older, some of us
are weaker. Some of us feel we cannot
communicate well or we can't do this and we can't do that.
But we know that every one of us has a contribution to make.
And I pray that every one of us, that contribution will start to
spill out Sunday by Sunday when we meet or during the week
whenever we're together, that these things would just begin to
surface and change lives. So we ask these things with
gratitude in our hearts, with praise towards you,
acknowledging it's you and everything we have, every gift,
everything we can do, even the ability to speak, to breathe all
of these scum from your loving hand.
We are grateful people. We love you.
We ask you to bless these men and women that are on leadership
that are leading us here. We pray you bless their
families, their children. Their children will grow up to
live for you become mighty men and women of God, bigger than
them in the Kingdom with more capacity.
We want generation after generation till you come back to
be better than the last generation in terms of knowing
more, all that you've done, bringing it with them, but all
that you're doing and will do into the future, making it such
a cataclysmic. Dynamic breaking of hell.
And breaking in of heaven in the minds and hearts and lives of
all your people, nations changed in Jesus name, Amen.
God bless you. Thank you Sir, that was
wonderful. Let's just pray for Dudley
before he leaves. Lord, we sorry man Lord, we just
pray just your, your blessing and your favour and your
strength over Dudley and Anne. Lord, we thank you for him
pouring out. Lord, we thank you for a man
that's, you know, been persistently obedient to Lord
for many years. And so we just pray your
strength and your favour and, and just your continued
blessing, Lord, just over his health.
Lord, we just pray strength over him.
We pray that you would restore his body.
We pray that Lord as he leaves this place that that he would be
strong Lord and he would enjoy the rest of this day and he'd
have a good night's rest Lord, we pray for good night's rest
for him and and moving forward just bless them in every way.
Lord, we thank you for them. We love them where it's a
privilege to to have them in this church in Jesus mighty
name, Amen. Thank you man love you bro
excellent. I'm not going to say too much
more, but we, we want to grow, right?
And when, if we're going to grow, we're going to have to
change, you know, like a small tree, that plant that becomes a
tree. It can't stay the same to become
a tree. So we want to grow.
We want us to grow as people. We want this church to grow.
Yeah. So let's just continue to to be
open to hear what God's saying and, and put these things into
place. I hope that you guys have
challenged by some of those things and I hope that you will,
you know, with us as well. Just do something with this
stuff. Yeah.
May the Lord bless you and favour you and let his face
smile upon you. I'm being silly, but like, you
know, these are the things, you know, like we're, we're going to
have to step outside of our comfort zone here in many ways.
So Lord, help us do that. Amen.
Bless you guys. Have a wonderful day.
Thank you for joining us for today's message.
For more information about The Way Church, please visit
ourwebsite@thewaychurch.com dot AU.
Have a blessed day.