Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South
Australia. So when we pray for Dave as he
brings the word Lord that may it also just may your spirit just
bring it alive to us today in Jesus name, Amen.
Amen. Thank you, bro.
My name's Dave. Yeah.
With my wife Hilary, we lead the, the team that leads the
church here. Justin and Bianca are eldership
couple. There's.
Four of us so. Who's got their their Bible with
them this morning? Let's get our Bibles out.
We have, we've been, we've been pushing this.
We're going to continue not to be pushy, but just to, we want
to build a culture of bringing our Bibles, getting familiar
with the text for ourselves, being able to dig in here, being
able to find things. I know a lot of you use your
Bible apps and stuff like that. That's fine.
I love a paper Bible. So what I'll do this morning is
when I bring a few scriptures, I'm going to actually turn there
and just give you guys some space to find it for yourselves.
I think sometimes we can just rush through that.
So that's what we want to do. So we're going to have to be
patient in that because it does take a little bit of time to
find it. So I had the privilege this week
of going and seeing the Great Ocean Road for the first time.
And I know many of you that I've spoken to have seen that road,
been driven down that road. What a beautiful part of
Australia, right? It just, it reminds you of how
blessed we are where we live. You know, like quite often when
I think about travelling and going and seeing the world, I
just completely bypass Australia.
I just want to go overseas, right?
Gosh, Australia has some beautiful things to see.
And you know, we, we, you know, you've seen the coastline and
stuff. I've got a couple of photos that
we're going to share in a moment.
Not just yet, but you, you can't see such spectacular views and
not be drawn towards the Lord. Like as a believer, you know,
I'm travelling with some other guys that are, that are pastors
that are, you know, they're believers and we're just looking
at each other, just going, Oh my goodness, like the, the majesty
of God, the power of God, his creation.
It's so stunning. You can't not see God's mighty
hand when you go and look and we don't have to go far.
You don't have to go far to to go and and look at nature and
see God's mighty hand, right? But I was just reminded of
Romans 120. So if we can turn there, please
Romans one verse 20. If you guys beat me there, it's
because I'm doing it one handed, right?
Romans one verse 20 it says how we doing very good.
It says for since the creation of the world, his invisible
attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made. Even his eternal power and
Godhead so that you are without excuse.
You know, that's saying that like those that it's like every.
Single person that can see that can witness God's creation is
without excuse to reject the Lord and his creation.
Isn't that wonderful? I mean, it's wonderful for us,
but like it's just so stunning that you could just see God's
mighty hand and and power and Godhead in all that he's made.
And I would encourage us to go and regularly do that, you know,
go down to the coast, go and watch the ocean.
See how vast the ocean is. Go and go look at the tree close
up, look at it leaf, turn it over and look at the veins.
Go and inspect this wonderful creation and let it just stir,
you know, just Thanksgiving and glory to the one who made it.
Amen. And so anything that's built of
any, of any substance, you know, like you look at these, the
creation, you look at what God's made, It's so it's got so much
substance, but it's, it's, it takes consistency to build
something with substance. You know, God speaks and things
come to fruition, right? We're, we're not God.
Like if I'm going to build something, it's going to take a
lot of effort. You know, like I'll watch my
boys build with Lego and stuff like that.
It's such a step by step process and it takes consistency.
So I'm saying all that just to bring that word to our, to our
minds, consistency. It takes consistency to build
anything of any substance, OK. And, you know, consistency
requires patience. You know, there's so much
scripture that talks about we need to be patient.
In order to be consistent with anything, you have to be
patient. So they sort of go hand in hand.
But I've got a couple of photos here just to share with us.
Where where is the first one? What do you got there, Pete?
OK, so this is, I forget what it's called, but it's basically,
you know, you've got the coast obviously here and then you've
got this huge, you know, where the water sort of eroded away
and it's it comes if you show the next photo, this actually
joins with a bit of a cave and this is like, so there's like a
bridge over the top here. And that what we just looked at
is on the other side of that going out to the coast.
And then you've got this little bit of water in here where the
waters just come and just eroded through and it's made a bridge
and it's done all this stuff. And I was just looking at that
and I was just thinking about like the consistency of the
ocean. Can we just go back to the to
the first one, please? Like, you know.
It's funny when you read the signs about this, it's like, oh,
this happened over 20 billion years and I'm just looking at it
just going, I don't think so, but.
Like consistently hammering away at what must have been like a
weak spot in the coastline here and brought it down and then
just consistently just hammered and hammered and hammered away
over over decades or hundreds of years or thousands of years,
whatever it is. And it's made this huge.
This is massive. Like we stood up here and this
was like, this is like a 40 meter drop.
Like it's massive, right? Like the the photos don't do it
justice, but I just like, I couldn't help but just think
about the consistency of water and waves crashing against
something very solid, you know? Earth and just washing it away,
just washing it away just little by little, little by little and
making this huge dent into the into the coastline here.
And the next photo is the is the 12 apostles.
Which you know, there's like 5 of them left or something like I
don't know how many exactly is left.
There's a couple hiding behind there.
But there was 1 here, there was 1 here.
This was obviously this is going to be gone soon.
And I was talking to to Paul. So Paul lives in Warrnambool.
So he's been, he comes through here quite regularly.
He's blessed to have this beautiful coastline to ride his
motorcycle down. A little bit jealous, but we
don't do jealousy. So good for you, Paul.
But, you know, over the time that Paul's been in Warrnambool
for 20 years, he's seen some of these come down.
And I just think, you know, just the consistency of just this
water just hammering and making a little, you know, just
undercut it a little bit here. And then it just goes a bit
deeper and it falls, you know, and, and all of this would have
been joined to this. Coastline at some point, I would
suspect. Right.
And it's these waves and this ocean is just eroded away and
that's what you're left with. And I thought about, you know,
water can't do much on its on its own.
Like if I have a glass of water like it's not really hurting
anyone like I could. Throw it at someone.
I wouldn't never do that, but like, you could throw it at
someone and you know, you might get wet, but it's not going to
hurt you, right? But when it's got some force.
Behind it, water can be very powerful.
You know, we use water to in high pressure cleaners and stuff
like that. You know, there's a such a thing
as a water jet cutter. You can cut steel with water if
it's like, you know, under enough pressure, that's pretty
amazing, right? You can cut steel that's like
that thick. I used to work in this industry,
right, with water, water. And if the so if the right force
is behind it, it can be very powerful, which we see in these
photos. So yeah, maybe we just take
those photos away so that you'll listen to me.
But you know, the momentum behind the waves, it's the it's
the power behind the ocean that erodes these things away.
Very powerful. It washes away mountains.
That blows my mind that water could do that.
And we know from Scripture, if we turn to Ephesians 5 verse 26,
we we get a bit of an insight into into.
Water or or let's just read it. Hey, Ephesians 5 verse 26.
So this is let's just read from 25 husbands, love your wives,
just as Christ also loves the church and gave himself for her.
So this is talking about Christ, that he might sanctify her, his
bride, and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the
word, that he might present her to himself, a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she she
should be holy and without blemish.
So Christ is is it says that it's like water.
He's the word of God is like washing us clean and I just
thought about that. It's like the word of God, like
if this Bible of mine is just sitting on the shelf and not
being used. This is like stagnant water
that's just not able to do anything.
It can't clean you. It can't wash you.
It can't, you know, wash away all of the rubbish and make us
like Christ if it's just sitting there stagnant.
But when we read the word, when we, when we eat of it and when
it's empowered by faith. So you know, the water in the
ocean is empowered by, you know, the currents and the, and the
waves and, and these sort of things.
So the word of God is empowered by faith.
The word of God is powerful through faith.
It's like you're reading it and the only way that it's going to
be able to wash you and clean you is through faith.
That's the power trusting God at, at his word and what he
says. And so again, when we think
about consistency, we need to be consistent in reading the word
of God in the washing of the water.
You will never end up, you know, as that water washed away the
coastline and it did so much. You're never going to be vastly
transformed to be like Christ outside of consistently being
washed by his word through faith.
Isn't that true? And there's people in this room
that have walked a whole lot further down the road than me
and been washed by his word for a whole lot longer.
And they're a lot more mature than me and, and, and they're,
and they're more Christ like than me.
It's not something that you can just get a hold of straight
away. It takes consistency.
It takes reading his words being washed.
It takes being with the Lord and spending time with him, all of
these things. And so we want to be consistent.
And when we are consistent, all of the, the muck, all of the,
you know, all of the lies, all of the things that bind us up,
all of the misdirection and all of these things that life has
taught us or, or we've been bound by.
And these sort of things that the unchristed like stuff, can I
say, needs, you know, gets washed off us and we become like
him. He is perfect, He is awesome, He
is pure. There is no unrighteousness in
Christ at all. And that's what he, that's his
desire and his will for us as a church.
He wants us to be washed clean and made whole.
And so consistency will, will transform us to be like Him.
This is life changing stuff guys.
You know, I've changed so much in a period of time, but it has
been through consistency. It hasn't been like a lot
changed very fast for me. But after that it was like, all
right, now you're going to have to seek me.
You know, I'm going to, I'm going to the Lord sort of just
changed some things that were really tripping me up in my life
that were leading me away from him.
He he cleansed me of those things and he got those things
out the way. But after that it was like, now
come to me now let me wash you now.
Let now now yield to me, you know, be transformed by my by my
word and it changes your your life.
You will not be the same. And it's such a wonderful
change. You would never go back.
I would never go back to be the person that I used to be.
And I know that we're the same in this room, right?
You would never go back and become the person that you were
before Christ came and started to form you and wash you because
it's so wonderful. He's so good.
And so this is the a culture that we want to build as the
local church here, a culture of consistency, of consistently
seeking the Lord, of consistently being washed by his
word. All of these things that we're
talking about, You know, we want to build biblical culture,
culture that's in accordance with his word and, and whatever
it is, whatever The thing is, we need to be consistently
implementing and going after those things and reminding one
another and, and, and over a period of time.
It's not going to happen overnight.
We're not just going to be, you know, a, a church that is
extravagant in our worship and just come together and just
overflow and, and bring the. Roof down.
You know, just because we decided one Sunday that that's
what we want to do, you know, because I, I stood up one day
and said, Hey, guys, we're going to worship extravagantly today.
And everyone goes, OK. And then like that's now the
culture. It just doesn't happen like
that. It, it, it has to be, we have to
be reminded that guys, we, we owe the Lord everything and we
want to give him the glory that he deserves, right?
And so we constantly remind each other and constantly seek to do
that together. And over time, as people come
into that, they catch something of what the Lord's formed us to
be. And so there's many things that
we want to be as a local church, an extravagant worship is one of
them. We want to praise the Lord
freely, not thinking about what people are thinking, not
worried, not not, you know, scared to raise our hands, not
worried to, you know, when we asked us to stand and, you know,
feeling uncomfortable to hell. With being uncomfortable in
worshipping the Lord. Amen.
Get out of here. We are going to be free.
We're going to be a church that's free to worship the Lord
in this place. Amen.
We are that's the that's the church that the Lord is building
here. One of the aspects, right?
And So what sort of church are we called to be?
Justin preached a couple of weeks ago about being a packed
house. You know, the in heaven, it's a
packed house and everyone's giving glory to God and
everyone's enjoying him. And that's that's in heaven.
It's like on earth as it is in heaven.
We're going to be a packed house.
And we want to see that not just so that we have a lot of people
here, but so that we can be effective in in the mandate that
we have as a church in the seeing the gospel get out in
seeing people safe, but not just safe transformed, set on fire,
turn from their old lives, never want to go back.
You know, that sort of that sort of culture.
That's the sort of culture that the Lord is building in this
house, a packed house. And Daniel shared last week
about daily evangelism. All of these things are sort of
leading us towards, you know, Easter Sunday is next weekend.
Easter Sunday is a big deal. A lot of people go to church on
Easter that don't set foot in a church any other time of year.
And so that's that's a big deal. We want to see people come to
know the Lord. We want to see the people
experience something of the goodness of God and heaven on
earth in our midst. So we're going to take advantage
of that, right? We're going to use this coming
weekend as an opportunity and whatever opportunity is
available, we're going to take hold of it.
And that means that we're going to be expecting, we're going to
do what we can to see God, gather some people here that
don't know him, that can get to know him and be saved and be set
free as we have. Amen, Amen.
So we're going to talk into this packed house just a little bit.
It is because like I'm talking about it leading into Easter,
but this is a culture that we want for our house, a packed
house full of people. You know, the, the in the Acts
church, the early church, it says that the, the Lord was
adding daily those who are being saved.
That's the dream, isn't it? For this church, for this local
church, for the church in our city.
That's the dream that this city would experience people being
added to the church daily. And they we probably are, but we
only get to see a small portion of that, which is why
relationship with other churches is important.
Seeing what God's doing bigger than ourselves.
All right, So for for us to grow in effectiveness and number
requires for people to come, but it also requires for people to
stay. And so we're going to talk
around that a bit for us to grow.
I've just said that move on, David.
But we must play our part here. We must play our part in seeing
people come along. We must play our part in helping
people connect, in helping people.
You know, we are a family, this local church, we are a family,
and we want to see people join this family because we love this
family. This is a good family.
The Lord has built a lovely family here.
And I'm not ashamed to want people to come and join this
family because I enjoy this family.
This is God's family. So we want to see people come.
We want to see people stay. And it's going to require us
bringing them along, inviting them along, helping them
connect. And so three points for building
people in #1 invite. We must invite people.
If we don't invite people, they're probably not going to
come extend extending that that wow, have you guys got pen and
paper? Maybe just write that down.
It's amazing, right? Extending an invitation to
people to come is very important.
If I never asked Hillary, my wife out, we probably wouldn't
be married right now, right? Like if we probably, I don't
know, maybe she would, she probably would have asked me
out. No, she she wouldn't have.
This is exactly right. But do we see what we're saying?
Right? Like if I didn't, if I didn't
step out, if I didn't invite, if I didn't ask, we wouldn't.
There wouldn't be no relationship here.
That is the same for everyone. If we don't invite them along,
we will never grow relationship with them.
That's like step one is invite right?
And again, I'm not just talking about this coming weekend.
I'm talking about every meeting. I'm not just talking about
Sunday meeting. I'm talking about community
group. I'm talking about prayer group.
I'm talking about our homes. I'm talking about coffee.
I'm talking about whatever it is that we, whatever way we can
connect with people to build some relationship, we have to
invite them if we're going to be seated with them talking.
It's very important. Can I say that if you struggle
to make friends, these are really good points as well.
There's three points #1 invite someone, invite someone to your
house. If you, if you don't have a lot
of friends, step one, invite someone.
It's amazing. Anyway, so that's step one.
Why do we invite someone to church?
Like, so why would we invite someone to church next Sunday?
I'm going to tell you, God has a plan to reconnect with lost sons
and daughters. That's God's plan.
He, he. But not only reconnect, not only
Jesus didn't just come to reconnect people with God the
Father, he also wants to protect them.
He also wants to provide for them.
He wants to make them whole. He wants to restore them.
He wants them to become what he created them to be.
He wants them to become like himself because mankind was
created in God's image and God wants to restore that.
That's why we invite people to church, because we want them to
be restored to the Lord. And God wants us to tell
everybody how good he is. Like we, we get saved.
God just doesn't want us to keep this to ourselves.
You know, it's like, if you realize how good God is, you
want to tell people, right? So there's a revelation that
needs to take place. You need to know how good God is
and how wonderful he is and how he's transformed your life.
Do you know what you do after that?
You want to tell people, right? That's it's sort of just happens
like, but I think we've we've hit a bit of a a bit of a snare
as the church where we've sort of just we don't seem to be that
excited about being a Christian anymore as a whole.
I'm not not talking about you guys like you guys are excited,
but like the, if you look at the church as a whole, it's just
like, I remember stepping foot in church after a long absence
and I was pretty excited. Like I'm like, yes, like my, my
life has changed. He is good.
This is amazing going to go be with the Christians.
And yes, there was many people that shared that same excitement
and, and zeal for God's house, but there was many that didn't.
You run into a lot of people that would tell you that they're
believers and they're Christians, but they don't seem
that excited about it. They don't even really tell you
about it. It's like it seems that, you
know, they want to talk about their problems and their
hardships more than they want to talk about how good the Lord is.
And so we want to talk about how, how good the Lord is.
We want to be a house that magnifies how good the Lord is
that the first thing that comes out of our mouth isn't how how
much our week has sucked, right? The first thing when we see each
other is just like, oh gosh, it's good to be in the House of
the Lord again. It's good to see you, You know,
how was your week? It's been hard, but man, I'm
glad to be here. I'm glad to be amongst these
people because I know that when I when we come together and we
worship God and when we pray for one another and we, when we,
when we be a family, that I'll leave feeling better.
I leave this place feeling better.
Do you guys leave this place feeling better, feeling
refreshed? We do.
That's one of the reasons that we would invite people to come
because people aren't doing well.
If you're living outside of of Christ and outside of his
blessing and outside of his favour, life is very difficult.
It's hard enough for us, isn't it?
Life is tough. How much more for those who
don't have any hope that don't know Him?
That's why we want these people to come and and see Him and know
Him. So we don't want to keep it
secret. We want to be eager to share
what the Lord has done. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 20, it says
now, then, now that we're saved. We are ambassadors of Christ as
though God, we're pleading through us.
We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.
You catch the heart of that. It's like we are crying out for
people to know this wonderful God that we know.
This is why we invite people to church.
You know, church is not a building.
You got to, we got to remind ourselves of this.
Church is not a building, It's not an organization.
It's it's not, you know, somewhere that we gather, the
church is a group of believers that know him, that praise him.
So when you're inviting someone to church, you're inviting them
to be in God's house in the family, to experience something
of who the Lord is that they would that they could look at us
and see him and that they would be engaging with a, a people
that are just longing for people to to see him and to know him.
Amen. It's got to be the cry of our
hearts. This is the church that we're
building here, a Church of people that are desperate,
desperate to see this community saved, desperate to see this
city won and taken for the Lord. Amen.
Hope that there's stirs some desperateness, if that's a word
in our hearts. Desperation.
Thank you, love. Desperation to see the Lord move
powerfully in our city and in our community, Justin shared
Luke 14, verse 23. Let's go there, please.
Luke 14, verse 23. It says here that the master
said to the servant, go out into the highways and the hedges and
can compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
It's not selective, Justin reminded us.
It's not selective. It's not like because we do
this, I do this. I look at people and I look at
their lives that they live. I look at their interests, I
look at who they are, like people, friends, stuff like
that. And I make a call whether I
think. They would want to come to
church or not. I make a call whether they're
ready to receive the gospel or not.
That is not my call to make. That is not my call to make.
We are called to sow seed to water.
We are called to go and invite all of them.
Everyone just invite, invite, invite, invite, right?
Let the Lord do what the Lord's going to do.
Those that are ready will come. Those that won't, will not.
Those that God's calling to Himself will open their hearts
to Him and be saved. Those that aren't ready will
not, but we are. We are called to invite all of
them. This is just one scripture that
teaches that it must be unselective.
We must be unselective in who we are inviting and call along.
The Lord's desire is for the house to be full is our desire
for his house to be full. My desire is for his house to be
full. Like I, I want my house to be
full. I want to sit around, you know,
at the table and and and have people there that are coming to
know him that I can witness to Amen.
This, this is like this is the the fulfilment of life right
here in our hearts. This is the reason that you and
I are here. If we're living a life that's
unfulfilling, it's because we are not living the mandate of
God because we're not living for his plan and purpose.
We might be living for our own. That would be the reason why our
hearts are were unfulfilled in our hearts.
When you start to take on the Lord's desires and the Lord's
will and his desires that his house would be full if I just
take a hold of that and just go Lord, if your desire is for us
to have a full house, my. Desire is going to be to to see
the house full and because your desire is to see the house full,
I'm going to invite all of the people to come and, and let you
sort through who's who's you know, called to come and all of
the rest of it I'm. Going to be unselective.
You know, we've got some Easter Flyers and stuff like that.
Take some Flyers, start handing them out, give them to your
friends, your family, your neighbors, whatever.
Go put them in letter boxes. I don't know, like we haven't
organized a letter box drop. If you feel like it, grab a
stack and go put some in some letter boxes around here.
Don't put them in the ones that say no junk mail.
OK, So you know, like this is just like these Flyers are just
a way that we can reach out to people.
It's you know, if you're not confident to invite someone
personally, just hand them this and say, Hey, we're, we're going
to have a wonderful time next Sunday.
You should come along, bring your family, bring your friends.
All right, so there's ways that we can do this.
We try to make it easier for ourselves.
Pray over the Flyers, like through faith, right?
We we do pray over these Flyers, pick it up and say, Lord, won't
you call whoever this wherever this landslord, I pray that you
would do what I'm unable to do that you would stir hearts that
you would bring them along and and quote the scripture.
We've been talking a lot about speaking God's word.
Quote the scripture, say, Lord, your word says that your desire
is to have a full house. So I'm stepping out with this
and I'm going to give it with to someone and I'm going to trust
that because it's your will and your desire that you're going to
bring the people in. Amen.
Pray in, pray in, in step with his word, take a hold of his
word by faith as we started speaking about all right, so the
second thing, I feel like I'm taking a long time here.
I am taking a long time. All right, I've got to hurry up.
Second point, serve and connect once people come like our job's
not finished, right? Like we are.
We are people here that are called to serve and connect with
these people. And so we're going to have some
like Easter, we're going to have some fun, We're going to have
some fellowship. We're going to have some food.
We're going to have, you know, an Easter egg hunt for our kids,
all of these things. But if you're a part of this
church, if this is your home, if this is your family, there's no
sitting on the bench here like you're on the team.
Like this team doesn't have a bench.
It's like you just get full game time, right?
There's no, there's no rest, no bench.
We're always working doesn't mean you can't sit down and and
play this game. This is a game you can play
sitting down. Thank you, thank you, Lord.
But we're we're all a part of the team and we're all called to
to connect and reach people that come here.
That means that we need to talk with people.
That means that when you, if you bring some friends along, make
sure that you're just not the only person that's going to
stand there and talk to them. I would trust that we as a
family would take the step to, to go and, and talk to people
that we don't know. I pray that's true.
I hope that's true for our visitors today.
But your job can also be to take them to, to and introduce them
to people. You know, if I, if I bring my
friend Johnny and Johnny loves to eat meat, I will take him to
speak to Dan because Dan likes to eat meat.
This is a silly thing, right? I'm being silly, but common
interests is a way that we can connect people together.
And so, you know, just, it's just one of the ways like go and
introduce them to someone that you think they might connect
with. We're going to, we're going to
obviously have coffee and all those serving in the church.
Connecting with people means offering them coffee.
It means offering them food. It means taking their plates.
It means are you finished with that cup?
Can I take that from you? This is a service class.
This is a way that we can connect with people that God
brings in. We are going to serve these
people. We are going to be a church that
serves not just on Sunday in our community groups, in our men's
group and all of the things. Whenever we're together, we're
going to be a group of believers that serves.
Why are we going to be servant hearted?
Because the Lord is servant hearted, Jesus came to serve.
Matthew 20 verse 26. I'm going to keep moving God.
So I'm just going to read. OK, You could turn there if you
like. Matthew 2026 Yet it shall not be
among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let
him be your servant. Whoever desires to be first
among you, let him be your slave.
Just as the Son of God did not come to be served, but to serve
and to give his life a ransom for many, Jesus came to serve.
And when you read about the life of Jesus in the scripture, you
will see that Jesus was a servant and we are called to be
servants. When people come into the
family, when people come into our meetings, they, they will
see Christ. If we're being Christ like when
we're serving, they see something of the Lord.
Can I say that in a room full of if you had a room full of
believers and people that don't know him, if it was like a 5050
split and we were eating and fellowshipping, we should be
able to see those that know him. We should, you should.
There should be a vast difference between believers who
are seeking to be Christ like and people that don't know him
and don't even know how to be like him, right?
And that means that, you know, that's something of so in
heaven, as in as on earth, so in heaven, it's like people could
experience something of the heart of God when they're in our
midst. And service is one of those
amazing things that we can do. Can I say that our our community
group, we, we love to get together and eat food at our
community groups. Can I say that it should be a
fight to see who goes last, right?
Like a group of believers should be so wanting to serve each
other that no one's even willing to go first.
You do see this if you look for this when we're together, if you
look for this. You will see this, you will see
people that are putting others first look for it because
there's an example here that people set and it's a Christ
like example, people that will. When serving themselves a drink,
if they're thirsty, they go to get a drink, but they will, they
will stand there and they'll go, does anyone else want to drink?
Right. And they'll, they'll pour 5 or 6
drinks before they even get to themselves.
That's service. That's servant heartedness.
That's like when we hand out the plates and because you know,
we've got all this food to eat, it's like you pass your plate
plate on to the next person. These are simple things, guys,
but this is it shows what's going on in our hearts.
If you're handing your plate to someone else so that they can go
first, you are putting someone before yourself.
That is the heart of God that we would put others before
ourselves. Very practical things, but
things that you can see, tangible things, right?
Very special. So we need to example this and
we need to remind ourselves of this.
Don't be harsh. Oh, Gee, I can see that you're
serving yourself there. Like that's, that's not helpful,
right? That's not a, that's not a
heart. That's not God's heart.
God didn't do that to us. Jesus would never do that to us,
right? Jesus exampled and taught.
And so you can hand the plate to someone and say, do you see what
I did there? Right?
Like you can do that. It's OK.
It's stirring us for, you know, a heart of service and worship
to our King. Amen.
It's good stuff. John 1335 says by this all will
know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one
another. It's like people that come in
will know that we are disciples of the Lord because we love one
another. How are they going to know that
we love one another not just because we tell them, Oh yeah, I
love Daniel. Cool.
How would they know? Because I'm going to hand him my
plate, right? I'm going to say you go first.
That's what love is. Love is laying down your life
for someone else. Go and read it.
That's what. Isn't that Jesus's example that
he came to lay down his life for you and I for living for others.
That's what love is. So let's start to example love
when we're together. Amen.
How else did Jesus example service?
I'm trying, I'm really trying to move fast now by washing with
the word. When Jesus was with people, he
spoke life. He he breathed hope.
He spoke words of truth and of encouragement.
Jesus prayed. Jesus prayed for people.
Jesus healed people. Jesus set people free from the
things that were binding them. Jesus sent people away full, not
just in their tummies spiritually full, but Jesus also
sent them away full in their tummies.
Didn't he just the disciples were like, oh, just tell him to
go buy some food. No, you feed them.
You feed them. Why?
I'm not going to send them away and get weary and stumble.
You feed them. This is Jesus teaching and
exampling what the church should look like.
We're going to feed people the word of God.
We're going to wash with the word, word of, of the Lord by
faith. We're going to take a hold of
it, but we are going to feed people.
We have a food ministry here. When we give people bags of
food, you know what we're doing? We're following Jesus's example.
We have food here. We don't charge for coffee.
We don't charge for cakes. And this why?
Because we were told to provide for people and the Lord will
provide for us as we provide for others.
Amen. So this is something of what
this church needs to look like. It needs to be a church that's
preaching the Word, speaking the Word, living out the Word,
praying for one another, seeing people healed, set free.
We are trusting that when people come in here next week, every
week after that today, even if you come in here and you're
heavy and you and you have pain in your body, if you have
illness, we're trusting that in the in God's house, there is
freedom, there is hope, there is healing, Amen.
We stand for that not just because we want that, but
because the word of God says that.
So we will trust God through faith and believe that he will
heal his people, Amen. And he does all right.
This is something of on earth as it is in heaven.
There is no sickness in heaven. There is no depression in
heaven. There is no hunger in heaven.
There is. God provides for His people.
Amen On earth as it is in heaven.
Third Point, follow up. This is probably the most
uncomfortable, I think, you know, it's inviting someone
along. Takes a bit of courage, but you
can do it. Speaking to someone you don't
know, again takes a bit of courage, but you can do it.
Following up requires that we get some information from
people. You can't follow up with anyone
if you have no point of contact. And so, you know, I've said
three things. It's like invite, connect and
follow up. These things are going to help
us build a church, you know, into the future that that is
growing. We need for this to be our our
culture here. And so if we've, if we've
invited, if we've seen people invited, if we've connected
well, if we've blessed people, prayed for people, fed people,
connected with people, you know, like introduced people, all of
these things. Now we need, we need people's
information. We need for, to be able to
connect with people into, into the, you know, into the weekend
so that they can come. And a good way to do this is to
throw out another invite. It's like the process starts
again, right? It's quite often I'll invite
people to our community group, you know, so if we've got church
on Sunday, on Friday night, we, we have a community group where
we gather together and we eat and have fellowship and unpack
his word and pray and all the things that we should be doing.
So I'll invite people, I say, would you like to come and join
us again on Friday night? And if someone says sure, I've
enjoyed this, you know, and I would like to come.
OK, great. Could I have your phone number?
Could I have a social media can how can I connect with you to
give you this information so that you can come and be a part
of this? How like would you do you enjoy
praying? Is prayer something that you're
passionate about? We we gather here and we pray on
Wednesday nights. Would you like to come?
Yes, I would. OK, great.
Can I get your phone number? Can I, how can I, you know,
reach out to you? Or you could you could tell them
when the meeting is. But you know, we want to build a
culture of, of relational connection, right?
And that means that like if you've connected with someone
throughout a meeting or something like that, see if they
want to grab a coffee, invite them to dinner at your house,
throw out an invite, Let God take care of it.
But just be bold, right? It's just one way that we can
get people's information. Can I just say as well, we need
to be wise here. I know that this is sort of
going longer than I intended, but I need to say this.
We need to be wise. OK, So when it comes to like
young people or people of the opposite sex and stuff, please
be wise. Like I wouldn't go to, you know,
a single lady and say, Hey, can I get your phone number?
Like it's do you see what I'm saying?
Like there has we have to be a little wise in this.
OK, If I took my wife along, it might be OK, But just let's just
be a little careful. It might be easier just to ask
someone else along or ask someone else to connect or
something like that. Let's just be wise.
I I know that you guys know what we're saying, right?
Do you have anything to add to that, Justin?
I haven't done a good job of like actually relaying that.
Would you say anything more into that?
That's all good. OK, cool.
All right. So just be wise.
All right, so the so the follow up I would say needs to happen
sooner than later. Like I wouldn't let like 3 weeks
go by and then send them a message and say, Hey, would you
like to, you know, whatever, just be, be quick.
If we've got a community group this Friday, I'm trying to
invite people along that week and not in three weeks time, you
see, because like it's just a way of just staying connected
with people. I think it's just, it's just
good. It helps people to know that we
care as well. Like if if you ask for someone's
information and then they don't hear from you from three weeks,
Like if I said to Hillary when we met again, can I have your
number? And she didn't hear from me for
three weeks, she'd just be like, oh, OK, he wasn't really that
interested, right? Is it just, it says something,
it says that you care when you follow up quickly.
And the other thing that I would say just on that is that we got
to, we got to, we got to follow through with our word.
You know, quite often, like I hear of, of people saying, Hey,
you know, I'll give you a call sometime.
I'll run into this, you know, with my friends and stuff like
that outside of the church, you guys would never do this.
But like you run into friends, say, hey, we should catch up
sometime. Cool, I'll give you a call.
Never hear from them. We want to be authentic.
We want to be. It's like, let your yes be yes
and your no be no. If you say that you're going to
want to connect with someone, you, you have bound yourself
with an oath because we follow through on our word.
So just do what you, I just say all that just to say, just do
what you say you will do because we are representing the King.
The King doesn't do that. The Lord never says, Hey, I'll
do this and doesn't do it. So that's just that's just my
point there. We just got to do what we say
that we will do. All right, So one last scripture
here. I'm just going to get right to
the point. Jesus heals this man beside the
beside the pool and he tells him to pick up his bed and he goes
and this this man doesn't know who Jesus is.
And so, you know, when these questioned by the Pharisees and
stuff, he goes, I don't even know who he was, but he just
told me to like pick up my bed and I'm healed.
And he's wonderful. And you know, this sort of thing
it actually says here, yeah. So John 5 verse 14 actually says
that after all that happened, Jesus found him in the temple.
So Jesus actually sees him and finds him and goes and talks to
him again and gives him further direction for his life.
But my point is that Jesus follows up here.
Jesus like doesn't just leave him alone.
He actually finds him in the temple.
And can I say that like, you know, possibly if Jesus was
around today, he might follow up with, you know, a phone call or
a text or go looking for them on social media, right?
He might go, you know, this man that I healed, I wonder how he's
doing. Do you see what I'm saying?
Like Jesus followed up all that to say that there was an example
that Jesus said that he didn't just send people away and then
that that was it. He did want to follow up with
people. He did want to build
relationally. OK.
So, so those three things, this is kind of a crash landing, but
it's OK because we're sort of running out of time.
What are the three things? Number one was invite.
Number two, serve and connect #3 follow up.
If we do these things, well, if we do these things as as a
church, as a people and out of a good heart, again, like you
could do all these things, you know, with, with wrong motive.
But because we want to do these things because again, we are, we
have a passion in here that wants to see people come to know
him. So we're going to do these
things. We're going to see these things
put in place in this local church and the Lord's going to
add to us. We've seen this.
Can I say we've seen this happen?
This does happen. And, and, and it is a way that
we can do this, but it's going to take all of us.
We can't rely on the few to do this.
All of us can play our part in this.
And so I hope that's OK. I know it's super, super
practical today, but this is the season that God has in, has us
in as a church. We're building foundationally.
We're still putting the foundations in.
The building hasn't gone up yet, guys.
We're putting the, these, the which we're we're putting the
cultures in place that need to be in place, that as people
come, that they can be well taken care of and that we can be
successful in being the lampstand that the Lord has
called us to be. Amen.
I hope that's OK. Could we just stand together?
We're just going to pray. Yeah.
Lord, we, we thank you for your word.
We thank you, Lord, that your word washes us clean, makes us
whole, you know, reveals who you are and transforms us to be like
you. So through faith, Lord, we take
a hold of the things that that you've shared in and through
your scripture today. We want to be a church that has
a healthy Kingdom culture that when people come into this
building into this mix, into this family, Lord, that they
would see and taste that the Lord is good, that they would
experience something of the Kingdom of heaven here.
Lord, I pray that I was just reminded this morning as we were
singing, Lord, that your word says that your that your burden
is light and your yoke is easy. And so I pray over all of us in
this place, over any heaviness, Lord, over any struggles, over
any pain whatsoever, over any sickness, over any frustration,
whatever. It is anxiety.
Lord, I speak to those things now, even as the water just
hammered that mountain. I speak through faith with your
word, with the water of the word.
And I say, be healed in the name of Jesus, be set free, be
delivered, made whole, for the Lord is King.
He all authority has been given unto you, Lord Jesus, Palm
Sunday. Lord, you rode in on a donkey.
Lord, you're not sitting on a donkey anymore.
Lord, you are the lion of the tribe of Judah.
You are seated on the throne in heaven.
You are victorious and we look to you this morning.
We we exalt you, we praise you, we look to your coming and we
will work hard here Lord, to see your Kingdom come and your will
be done in Jesus mighty name, Amen.
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.