Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South
Australia. Just going to just start by just
sharing a scripture that I felt just in the in the singing time,
in the worship time, music time, Ephesians one I'll start in I'll
start in 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being
enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling.
What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the
Saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power
towards those who believe according to the working of His
mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He raised him from
the dead, and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly
places. Jesus is seated in the heavenly
places at the right hand of the Father, far above all
principalities, and power, and might, and dominion, and every
name that he's named, not only in this age to come, but that
which is to come. And he put all things under his
feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church,
which is his body, the fullness of him who feels All in all.
But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love, which
we've He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together in Christ.
By grace we've been saved and has raised us up together and
made us to sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Isn't that amazing that in the ages to come he might show the
exceeding riches of his grace in and his kindness towards those
in Jesus Christ? Like this is the the Lord Jesus
that we're Speaking of this morning and not just Speaking of
him that we're encountering, that we are worshipping, that
the Spirit of God that is doing something here right now in US,
through us in this room. We're not, we're not just a
bunch of people singing songs to a God that's far away.
We are a body of Christ coming together by the Spirit of God
and praising and worshipping him and communing with him.
And like he's doing something here.
Like he's dealing with stuff, like he's setting us up for
success, right? And we have to start there, you
know, and Leo obviously shared that, you know, last weekend.
It's just like, it's all about him.
Like we don't do anything for ourselves.
We don't do anything so that we gain anything.
It's so that He's glorified him, that we make much of him, and we
get to partake in all of his goodness.
We get to experience him, and He is the prize.
You know, Ty talks a lot about this when he was with us.
Jesus is the prize. You know, we're not walk, we're
not praying, we're not trying to know the scriptures.
We're not doing church, you know, to get to some end goal
that, you know, that God would empower us to do something.
It's so that we know Him. It's so that we can commune with
God in a real way and that, you know, we'd be restored in into
right relationship with God the Father.
Isn't that powerful. And so these are the things that
we've been talking about, you know, the the culture of the
church, the things that need to be a culture for us.
And they all point back to Christ.
They're all, you know, we're never going to be, you know, a
generous culture if we're not connected with the Lord because
generosity is a is a is from the Lord.
It's like a fruit of the spirit. It's kindness, it's gentleness.
It's do you see? We can't, we can't.
You can act generous like I can give Daniel some money.
Calm down. I'm not giving you any money,
but I could, I could give Daniel some money right now.
And the act of me giving would be generous.
But if I did it begrudgingly, I'm not being generous, it's not
coming out of the right relationship with God because
I've, I've received generosity from him and it flows through
me. Do you see?
So you need to understand how generous God is if you're
actually going to partake of generosity.
You know, we don't want to just go through the motions for any
of these things. You know, we said that, you
know, Leo when he was with us and Ty also.
And, and even when, you know, when Dudley comes and speaks to
us, these guys are a part of the NCMI team.
We partner with this team. They are not guest speakers,
right? These aren't people that are our
friends that we welcome in just to give us a good message so
that we can go cool. Isn't that great?
And, and I think that sometimes what happens when there's a,
when there's a guest speaker mentality, like we just try to
put our best foot forward and like have our best musicians
and, and we're almost like showing off to them.
Like, look how wonderful we are. It's we've completely missed the
heart of what we're what's going on here.
We're not here to impress them so that they would look at us
and go, oh, wow, these guys are really running after the Lord.
It's not about impressing this these team guys, they are coming
as a part of the team with, you know, there there are an
Ephesians, there are trans local team of Ephesians 4 gifts that
come and minister into the life of these churches into us as the
life of the church that we would partake of, of this gifting and
that would deposit something here and we'd receive something
and it would build and edify the church that we could walk more
freely and successfully in the call of God for this lampstand.
God has a plan and a purpose for this lampstand.
And we partner with these with with the NCMI team so that they
can come in with an Apostolic and prophetic heart and they can
impart to us giftings and stir us up and remind us and rebuke
us if need be, You know, just to remind us why we're here.
And that would be strength and call that God has for us.
So I say all that just to remind us that like, you know, Leo's
come last week and talked about, you know, how important it is
for it to have a Christ culture and that that all, everything
that we do would be centred around Christ, which is sort of
the same message that type preached to us weeks before.
It's all about Christ. So we're not just going to go,
hey, that was a lovely weekend and just move on.
Let's, let's talk about something else.
You know, like let's talk, let's stay here for a bit and talk
about Christ. You know, like we, we, we need
to be a church that goes like there's, you know, Leo went
somewhere to come here. We've we're called to go.
We're not called to stay here. God's calling us out to go and
be a part of the greater Commission.
Can I ask for us in this room? Are we able to go?
I heard crickets. No, but like you don't need to
answer that. But are we able to go?
I would say yes, we are able to go in some way.
Like you might be, you know, bed bound and the Great Commission
is still for you. Like God hasn't changed his
mind, like he hasn't put the Spirit of God in in someone and
said, go there for what I'm saying is you can still play a
part. And we should because it's the
call of God. It's the reason for the church.
It's the reason that we're alive here.
And so, you know, when I say, are we able to go, can I remind
us? This is our two year birthday.
Many of us went to be here. We left churches, we left other
places. We came where we're involved in
a pioneering work here for the sake of the Kingdom, for the
call of the Lord that the Great Commission would be outworked.
So two years ago you went right. So you're still able to go is
what I'm saying. And and it might change over the
years, your availability and what you're able to do and stuff
like that. But we can all say yes, Lord,
here I am. Use me for the Great Commission
because that's the reason that the church exists.
We had our elders time last week, which was wonderful.
I, I thoroughly, you know, it sounds weird.
I thoroughly enjoyed. It wasn't even about enjoying
it. It was about it was the same
thing. It was the Great Commission.
It was God stirring us up and bringing in gifts and, and
imparting to us that we would be equipped and able to fulfil the,
the call of God on our lives as elders.
And so there was an investment there that we received, and many
of us in this local church played our part in this.
And so, like, if you baked something for the morning tea,
can I say that you've played a part in the Great Commission?
You've played a part in the going.
You might not have gone anywhere.
You might have stayed in your kitchen and baked a cake and
maybe Justin came and picked it up and then took it there, might
not have even left your house. But you've played a part in what
God is doing. And I say that just to remind us
that we can all play a part. There's something that we can
do. Many.
We were so excited and grateful for this church in that because
many of us baked things, many of us purchased things, many of us
gave money, many of us came and served there.
There was so much that happened through this little lampstand.
We are few in number, but we played our part and it's really
exciting. Were you excited, Justin?
We were so chuffed. We're like this.
Lord, you are amazing. Thank you for giving us the
opportunity to serve for the for the Kingdom, for the greater
call. Amen.
So good. Good on you guys.
And there's obviously like we're early in the year, there's going
to be many more opportunities for us to do this.
So don't think that well, I'm not able to do anything.
Never think I'm a I'm unable to do anything.
If anything, come and ask and say, what can I do?
Like, you know, like I can't walk and I don't have any money
or I'm just saying things that might hinder some people.
We can all walk here and you've made it here.
So anyway, but what can I do, Lord?
And, and, and come and speak to us, but ask the Lord directly.
Say Lord, here I am. Use me.
How can I be used? He will use you.
He hasn't left any of us here on the earth.
You 2 Nana, like you're here for a reason.
We're all here for a reason, right Until he calls us home.
The Lord has worked for each and every one of us to do.
That's an exciting thing. That means that that we're we're
there's purpose. It's nice to have purpose.
It sucks not to have purpose. If you think that you're
useless, no one here is useless. But if that, if that's in your
mind, if you think that you're useless and that you can't be
used of God, you're going to be in a very depressed state.
It's not nice to feel useless. And none of us are useless.
All of us have plan, have a purpose that God wants to stir
and use you in, not by my, not by power, but by the Holy
Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit that's
going to enable you to do anything.
Amen. Excellent.
All right, so I'm just going to read some verses from Nehemiah
1. Nehemiah, like us is was called
God had a call for Nehemiah. He had a mighty work for
Nehemiah to do. And so we're just going to look
briefly at the start of Nehemiah's journey, specifically
in prayer. Nehemiah started off in prayer,
so we're going to look at those scriptures now.
Nehemiah 1. I'll just give you the back
story. God had judged the nation of
Israel and driven them out from their land.
That was God's doing. The enemy didn't come and
destroy them. God allowed that to happen.
God was judging Israel. They were taken away captive.
They were taken to Babylon. The city of Jerusalem was in
ruins. The wall was torn down.
The temple was destroyed. It was a wasteland and Nehemiah
was serving the king of Babylon as his cup bearer.
So he was really close to the king, which is, you know, it's
a, it's a theme that we see in the Bible, Joseph in, in Egypt,
close to the, to the Pharaoh. See, God raises people up and
positions them to be used. And so Nehemiah won.
Some of the people came from Jerusalem, and Nehemiah asked
for the condition of Jerusalem. He says what's going on in
Jerusalem because he's miles away.
And verse 3, the the survivors who are left from the captivity
in the province are there in great distress and reproach.
The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and the gates are burned
with fire. This is the report that Nehemiah
gets. Firstly, people around Jerusalem
were in great distress and reproach, and Nehemiah just has
this heart for the people that he was distressed by that, but
not just because the people were distressed.
Can I say that Nehemiah was distressed for the Kingdom of
God because Jerusalem was God's holy city that God put his name
there and God raised up a holy people to bear witness of who he
was and that's not only the people that were struggling was
of distress to Nehemiah, but the Kingdom of God.
What of the Kingdom of God. It's in ruins, right?
That troubled him greatly. And when we and so like the the
Commission that the Lord has for us as a people sort of starts in
the same place, people out there are distressed and broken and
hurting, right? But more so than that, the
Kingdom of God is how is what God wants to show people.
He wants to reveal himself. He wants for the king to be
revealed and for the Kingdom of God to be made known out to
those people. So we can have a heart for the
lost and want to serve them and want to bless them.
But it's so much bigger than that.
We need to have a heart for God's Kingdom, Your Kingdom
come, your will be done. That needs to be the heartbeat
of us as a church that not only will we take care of the lost
and the broken and see them come to the Lord, but that the
Kingdom of God would advance, that it would move forward, that
it would take ground, that it would conquer here.
You know, and we know that it's never going to come to the full
fruition until Jesus returns. We realize that when Jesus
comes, that's when things get real.
But the Kingdom of God can be seen through the sons and
daughters of the King. That's where, where we're called
to let people know who he is and what he's about.
We're, we're, we're called to make the Kingdom of God known
here now. Amen.
We've got to ask God for a fire in here, Gods, because we're
the, the church is passive. We're sort of just sitting
around just enjoying, you know, well, at least we're saved.
At least, you know, the King's coming for us.
That is not the call of God. That is not the mandate.
The mandate is to get out there and help others to see what we
see. Amen.
So, Lord, put a fire in US. Lord, I pray that you would stir
just the Spirit of God for us to see clearly, to know the call,
to know the times and the seasons.
Help us here, Lord, even in this moment.
Lord, I pray that we wouldn't leave this place the same with
the same ability to be passive. Take that away from us, Lord.
Let us just be fired up again, Lord, for the plan and purpose
of our king. All right, we'll continue on in
verse 4. So it was when I heard these
things that I sat down and I wept and I mourned for many
days, and I was fasting and praying before the God of
heaven. So Nehemiah hears, he cares,
he's distressed, he fasts and prays, he denies himself and
seeks God. How important is prayer?
Prayer is so important. We need a greater revelation of
the importance of prayer because it's not just asking God for
things. If it's communing with God, it's
actually coming in and into an audience with the God, with God
Almighty, with the only one that has power to do anything.
So we need to be praying. We need to have a revelation of
the importance of seeking God, that the for the Kingdom, that
the Kingdom would come and His will would be done.
We just pray for our own selfish lives.
That sounds harsh, but it's true.
Sometimes prayer can only be me asking God to fix me, to give to
me, to bless me. That is not the reason that
Nehemiah was praying here. He was praying because he wanted
to see God come and do something that only God could do.
He knew that God had judged the people and he knew that it was
going to take God's mighty hand to bring him back.
So he went to God and he fasted and he prayed, and he diligently
was seeking the Lord. So in the same way, we need to
be diligently seeking the Lord that he could move, that His
Kingdom could come. Amen.
Prayer matters. It matters that we pray on our
own every day. Prayer is not just whenever you
feel like it. Prayer is every day.
Don't leave your bed without talking to the Lord.
Let's pray every single day. You cannot just say we can't
make it on our own. You can't overcome and be strong
without the Spirit of the Lord. Not in this world.
This world is cutting the legs out from under us.
It is the power of the Holy Spirit that helps us overcome.
Amen. Let's start in prayer.
Whenever we meet together, we must be praying.
That means that whenever we go out for coffee with each other,
don't just sit and listen to each other and, and the things,
the, the struggles in our lives and stuff like that and don't
pray right? We've got to pray.
We've got to seek the Lord. You can't fix anyone's problems.
The Lord can. The Lord can come and bring
comfort. You can say kind words to
someone when they're when they're feeling down and
depressed, but pray with them. Help them to lift their eyes and
and see the Lord. That's going to bring lasting
comfort. Amen.
We must pray, you know, Kingdom culture, whatever it is,
whatever we're talking about here, it has to come through
prayer. We're never just going to get
this right in our own understanding or through some
sort of a, you know, just reading the words and having
like an intellectual understanding of what we should
do. It has to be through the Spirit
of God that we can do anything, Amen.
And it's all about him. Before we go off and do anything
for him, we need to go to him. We need to know him.
We can't do anything for God without him, right?
Amen. Of course not.
So let's unpack Nehemiah's prayer a little.
First five, this is how he prays.
He said, and I said, I pray. Lord God of heaven, O great and
awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those
who love you and observe your commandments.
Just pause there for a second. Nehemiah starts off with praise.
He lifts up the name of the Lord.
That's how we should start praying.
Lord help me, I know I need money.
Father, you are mighty, You are powerful, You are wonderful.
You are able to do all things. You created all things.
We start in prayer, we start off sorry.
We start off with praise, giving God glory.
Today we celebrate two years. We're not celebrating that.
We've been here for two years and look how wonderful this is.
We're celebrating him, what he's done, how amazing he is.
Amen. He is awesome.
Thank you for to your years here, Lord, Thank you that you
made that possible. Thank you, Lord, that you can be
glorified in this community centre because it wasn't
happening before. There wasn't people lifting up
the name of Jesus right in this room.
This room's become a space of worship to the king.
That's significant. So we start off with praise and
then he goes on. Nehemiah started off with praise
and then he goes on verse 6. Please let your ear be attentive
and your eyes open that you may hear the prayer of your servant,
which I pray before you. There's a cry here from
Nehemiah. It's please, Lord, please.
You can hear the desperation in his heart.
Please, Lord, there's passion. He's desperate because he knows
why? Because he knows that he's
praying to a God that can do something.
He believes that when he is crying out to the Lord that
something can change here, that I'm crying out to the one that
can change this situation, that can bring hope, that can bring
peace, that has almighty power. Lord, hear my prayer.
Lord, hear us. Because we can do nothing in our
own strength like we need to be praying this way.
Look like we're, it's sort of different in the new covenant.
We have boldness to go before him and we know that he hears
us. But it's a really good thing to
remind ourselves that we have an audience with the king.
He knows that he hears. He would hear even if we didn't
ask him to hear. If Nehemiah said if he neglected
to ask the Lord God to hear, would the Lord God have heard
anyway? Of course he would have.
So it's for our sake that we say, Lord hear us, Lord hear us.
It's so that we can remind ourselves that we have an ear
with the God who created all, all things.
That's important for us because otherwise, sometimes what can
happen is we just pray in a way that we're just talking to the
wall. We don't acknowledge who we're
talking to. And I think that when we start
off with prayer and praising him, it brings you into a place
of reverence. So you start off in a way that
you remember who you are praying to, You remember who you're
praising to. And it's like, Lord, thank you
that you hear me. Thank you that you are
listening. Verse 6 continues day and night
for the children of Israel, your servants.
And I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we
have sinned against you both my father's house and I have
sinned. We have acted very corruptly
against you and have not kept your commandments, the statutes,
the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses.
Confession, confession. Nehemiah confesses the sins of
Israel, the people of God. But not only that, he includes
himself in it. He says I and we.
He knows that confession is so powerful before a holy God.
We got to come before the Lord and confess.
We got to make sure that there's nothing that's getting in the
way of of the Lord hearing and answering these prayers.
Can I say that like if I don't treat my wife right, my prayers
are hindered before the Lord? That's what the scripture says.
That means that if I don't treat my wife the way that he would
have me treat her, that my my prayers are hindered.
That means that confession is so important before a holy God, we
must confess, We must make sure that that we aren't coming to to
him knowing that this stuff that I've done, that I'm doing, that
I'm allowing in my life. That's that's getting that
that's searing my conscience. That's I think it's a lot about
your conscience towards God. You can pray that God would move
and heal and and you know, help your neighbors and give us his
spirit and all of these things. You could say that, but if in
the back of your mind somewhere you're just living for yourself
and there's things in your life that you're unwilling to repent
and turn from, you know that they're there subconsciously.
Maybe in the moment you're going to go away and you're going to
remember, but God knows they're there.
Repentance is really important. And I think that we can, even
when we're crying out to God, as Nehemiah did for the for the
people, for the people out there that we can pray in a similar
way. You know, we can say, Lord God,
you are merciful and great. We serve a merciful God.
But these people out there are your inheritance.
Lord, you died for them. Lord, forgive them, have mercy
upon them. Let them see your great mercy.
Do you see like you can, you know, you can't repent for
someone that they could be saved, but we could cry out for,
you know, for our community and for our city and say, Lord, let
this city repent and turn to you the the merciful one, the holy
God. We need to be crying out on
behalf of the people. They are dead.
The people that don't know the Lord are dead.
We come alive in Christ when we receive this great salvation.
So if there's a dead person on the floor there and I'm like,
you know, speaking to them, can they hear me?
They're dead. It takes the Lord to actually
put life in someone. That's why the salvation is a
work of God. You can't make yourself alive,
you can't even hear. But the Lord God can, can make
you alive to hear, and you can receive salvation from the Lord.
So we need to be crying out for our city, for our friends, for
the lost Lord. Help them to turn from their
things. Help them to find Your mercy and
your grace. Amen.
And again, it's for us and for them.
Don't go to the Lord with unconfessed sin.
You're not hiding anything from a holy God.
And this isn't a rebuke. This isn't a, you know, repent
from your sins. Like I should be able to say
that as clearly as that. So maybe I will repent from your
sins. Don't stay living in darkness.
We've been called from darkness into the glorious light.
Come to the Lord with a clear conscience.
Confess your sins. He remembers them no more.
You could do that right now. If you're in this meeting and
you know that there's things that need to be confessed, you
could do that now. I would encourage you to do that
now to say, Lord, forgive me. Do you know what the Lord does
when you cry out to him and say, Lord, forgive me?
What does he do? He forgives you.
This is what the word of God teaches.
I will remember your sins no more.
Done, finished, move forward, get living again.
Put those things behind you. But it happens through confess
confession. It's very powerful.
First eight, let's move on. Remember, I pray the word that
you commanded your servant Moses, saying, if you are
unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations.
But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them,
though some of you were cast out to the fathers parts of the
heavens, yet I will gather them from there and I'll bring them
to the place which I have chosen a dwelling for my name.
Catch this because this is important.
Nehemiah reminds the Lord of the words that he spoke.
He reminds the Lord of the promises that he made.
That is prayer. We must be praying this way.
We were asked to remind the Lord of what he said and what he's
promised. And Dudley shared this with us
as as elders during last week. And you know, it's something
that I've heard and I've known, but gosh, it gripped me again.
We need to be praying the word of God.
We need to be speaking the word of God.
It is powerful. You know, it is what we need to
go to war to see his Kingdom come and his will be done.
It's there's power in the word of God because he spoke it and
it's unchanging. We must declare His word as
Nehemiah isn't Nehemiah did. The promises of God are
unchanging. His word will come to pass.
The things that He said will happen.
His word does not come back to Him.
Void. Take a hold of that for your
life. Speak it, stand on it, take it.
It's like taking it to the bank. It's like taking the cheque to
the bank and just going, I've got the cheque, can I have the
money? They give you the money because
you've got the check. The word of God is like the the
written check. It's like I said it, it will
come to pass. You can take it to the Lord.
This is what Nehemiah does. He takes it to the Lord and he
said, Lord, you said that you would gather your people back.
And what is the Lord do? He gathers the people back
because he said that he would Amen this like this thing, this
book, the scripture, the word of God.
We've got to live by this. We've got to take a hold of it.
This is why we're sort of pushing.
Have a Bible, bring it in, read it, share it.
Amen. You know that this is important,
right? Did you read this this morning?
Don't answer me. Don't even look at me.
Did you read? Did you read this this morning?
Did you read this yesterday? Did you read this the day
before? Have you put the word of God in
you this this week? Have you declared the word of
God over your life, over your family, over your house?
Have we been declaring the word of God over this church?
I know some of us have because Pat and Leon said that they had
been this morning. Thank you guys.
I pray that all of us have been doing this declaring the word of
God over us as a people over a church.
It's the only way that this church, this lampstand is going
to be successful in walking in the call of God.
We have to get on board with what he said.
Amen. It's good stuff.
All right, verse 10. We'll keep moving forward.
I'm going to try and land this really fast.
Verse 10 Now these are the servants of your people whom you
redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.
Oh, Lord, I pray, please let your ears be attentive to the
prayers of your servant and to the prayer of your servant who
desires to fear your name and I'll and let your servant
prosper this day and pray. I grant him in the sight of all
of of this man, mercy in the sight of this man.
So Nehemiah's asking now he's praised the Lord.
Yeah, he's repented. He has declared the word of God.
Now he's asking, he's asking the Lord for something.
We got to be asking. This is we have to ask the Lord.
We have to ask him for the things that we need, You know,
he need. He asked for prosperity.
We've got to ask for prosperity. We got to ask for favor in the
sight of man. Nehemiah was highly favoured,
you know, and, and the king of Babylon, you know, commissions
him and sends him and gives him provision and all of these
things. So God answers that prayer he
asked for. He asked for favor in the sight
of men. And God does it.
We got to be asking for favor in the sight of men, you know,
favor in, in this, in the people that are running this Community
Center, favour for the council and the government in our city.
God's favour. We're going to be asking for
these things. But more importantly, my point
is we've got to ask. We've got to ask for the things
that we need to see God's will be done to see the Great
Commission come to pass Amen. James says that you don't
receive because you don't ask. Then he talks about, and then
when you do ask, you ask and your heart is in the wrong
position, right? So we have to ask rightly.
We're not asking God to give us for our own selfish desires.
Again, I mentioned that earlier. We're asking that God would give
us what's needed for his plan and for his purpose in and
through our lives in the life of this church in and through this
city and beyond. So bringing this to a close.
So, so the pattern for prayer here in the Old Testament, it's
funny when you put it aside the, the, the Lord's Prayer, it's the
same elements. So I'm not going to do that
today for you. I would encourage you guys to go
and do that. Read Nehemiah 1, read how he
prays and then go and read, you know, the Lord's Prayer, where
the Lord teaches the disciples to pray and see, have a look,
see how they tie together. It's very interesting.
So we need to be praying in a, in a way that the, the Scripture
gives us the pattern to pray. We need to praise the Lord, we
need to confess, we need to declare His Word.
I think that's the key one for us right now for this season
that we find ourselves in. Declare His Word, take a hold of
His promises and ask the Lord for those things that we need to
see His will done and fulfilled. Amen.
Excellent. Why don't we pray?
Do you mind if you just stand with me and we'll just lead us
in prayer here? Lord God, God Almighty, Creator
of all things, we praise you in this place.
We lift up high the name of Jesus.
You are the God of Gods. You are the King of kings.
You are the Lord of Lords. As we started off, Lord, you are
seated on the throne of glory at the right hand of the Father.
You've brought us up to sit with you as your body.
Lord, we declare your greatness in this place.
We praise the name of Jesus. Lord.
God, you are glorious, You're powerful, you are mighty.
We love you in this place. Have your glory, Lord.
We love you, Lord. Lord God, please forgive us for
our times of ignorance, Lord. Forgive us for, you know, being
selfish sometimes and for doing things with the wrong
motivation, Lord, For praying in a way that is unscriptural.
Lord, help us, Lord. Lord, forgive us for our pride.
Lord, I say, Lord, forgive me of my pride.
It's in there somewhere and it tries to get a hold of me
sometimes. Lord, I pray that you would
forgive us of our arrogance and our pride, our laziness.
Lord, I pray that you would forgive us of our laziness.
Lord, to just settle and to not run and to not step out and to
not lay it all on the line for you and your Kingdom.
Lord, forgive us. Lord, forgive the the people of
the community that you've planted this lampstand in.
Forgive us our sins. Lord, have mercy on the people
that you have called us to reach.
Lord, let your eyes be open to them.
Let your heart be open. Lord, let your mercy be extended
to them in the name of Jesus Christ, the one who died for and
who has forgiven. Your word says that you died
while we were still sinners. And so we thank you, Lord, your
that your attentive Lord, to to cries for the lost and for the
hurting and for the broken. Lord, according to your word, we
can do nothing. That's what your word says.
We need your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, fill us, empower
us. Let us leave this place, Lord,
empowered for the mighty work that you have for us, Lord.
Zechariah 46 says not by might nor by power, but by your
Spirit, Lord. So we take a hold of that today.
We stand in that truth and we we thank you that we have your
spirit, and we thank you that we can do all things through Christ
who strengthens us. Lord, you said that you will
build your church. We take a hold of that today.
You are building your church. This church, this local church,
this lampstand belongs to you. You said you will build it.
We will trust you, Lord. We will serve you.
We will follow you, Lord, and the gates of hell will not
prevail. We thank you for the power,
Lord, that you've given us as a body in this place.
Thank you, Lord. Lord, we are asking that your
power would come and fill us today, that you would anoint
your servants in this place, Lord, for the great work that
you've called us to. Lord, we thank you that each and
every one of us in this place has been made able ministers in
the New Covenant. We take a hold of that, Lord,
that's not just elders, that's just not just deacons, that's
not just worship leaders. That is Saints.
That is all of us. You have made us to be able
ministers in the New Covenant and we say Amen to that, Lord.
Lord, we pray that you would let the captives free in this city.
We're asking, Lord, that you would release them.
Lord, we pray that you would bring to us those that have been
held back. We, we ask that you would
release them in Jesus name, Lord, from the north and the
South and the east and the West. Give them up.
Release them, Lord. Let them come, Lord, in
alignment with your word. Lord, we pray for Lord, we're
asking for wisdom and understanding.
Lord, we pray that you would open out the eyes of our hearts
to see you clear, to know you clearly, to know that even the
times and the seasons. Lord, what you have us here for,
we pray that we would no longer be deceived.
Let us stray distracted. Lord, we pray that we would have
just a clear, clear, clear understanding of why you have us
here. Thank you Lord, Lord, call this
church and and and us as a people in light with your word
and your will. Call us in, Lord.
We, we pray for the firebrands, we pray for the mighty those
that are running after you, Lord.
We pray for the men and women that are hungry to serve.
We call them in. We say let them come, let them
join this mighty work that you have for them.
Bring in the firebrands, we say. Bring in the loss, bring in the
herding, bring in the lonely, bring in those that are
downtrodden, bring in those that are hurt, Bring those people in
also and everything in between, Lord.
We call them in. We call them in Lord, we pray,
Lord, that you would build a church in this city where the
where the lost are added daily. Lord, whether you are adding
daily those who are being saved. We pray for an explosion in the
church in our city. We pray, Lord, that we would see
young men and old men and and people in between whatever ages,
whatever demographic, whatever culture.
Lord, we pray that they would fill the church in this city.
We pray for a season of of fruitfulness and multiplication.
We pray Lord, that you would pour out your rain in this city
and the Spirit of God move powerfully these things We pray
in Jesus mighty name, Amen. Ephesians 3:20 I'm going to end
with this and I'm going to hand straight to Justin.
Ephesians 320 says now to him that he's able to do
exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that works in US.
To him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations,
forever and ever. Amen.
Awesome, awesome.
Would you just lift your hands to heaven?
Just very quickly. They've mentioned just in verse
11, I think it's of that Nehemiah 1.
Nehemiah says here are your servants and you reference the
scripture out of Isaiah. Here I am, Lord, send me.
So Father, right now with our hands towards heaven we say here
we are. Use us.
Send us. Call us in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen.
Thank you, Dave. That was amazing.
Brilliant man. It's a good time to be alive.
Hey, Jesus, Church is advancing. It will continue to take ground.
What we're going to do is on the back of that, this is our two
year birthday celebration. So can you give all yourselves a
round of applause to you? I mean, it's awesome that we're
all here. Hey, like happy birthday.
We can sing happy birthday later.
But what we're going to do is we're going to actually bring
the kids in. What we'd love to do is take a
photo of who is here. We did it last year for our
first birthday. We did it on the first Sunday
that the church met. I know that you might be like,
it's a bit cheesy and, but it's actually cool to look back and
say, well, look at what the Lord has done and he's done some
amazing stuff this year. He's done some incredible stuff.
I'll get, But I, I just want to encourage you with the stuff
that God has done this year because we can talk about it,
but it's cool to hear it. Hey, do you know that we've had
like 5 or 6 people join the church this year?
Like now we, we only had like 20 people originally.
So that's a 25% growth. That's playing with numbers, but
I work in data. That's cool guys like for these
some of these guys who who you're with us even this
morning, like you came to the church this year.
That's amazing. God, God is adding.
It may not look like much, but God is adding right?
And I was chatting with Leon during the week.
Do not despise a day of small beginnings like when God adds.
We doubled community groups. We went from one to two
community groups this year. In the last year we've gone,
Dana Chantel put up the hand and said like our community group in
our house is getting too big and we're like, well, hang on, we
need to split now. And so these guys put up their
hand and they're running a community group.
We're running 1 and we've got more people connected in to
community through the week. We baptized 2 people instead of
one person the first year. It's doubling that.
Like do not despise the day of small beginnings.
Hey Leon, do not despise the day of small, right?
We, we kicked off a men's connect in the community centre.
Colin said, Hey, I want to arrange some stuff for some men
in my community centre. And through that, we're actually
meeting with five people who do not come to church on a regular
basis, ministering the gospel to them.
We're not, we're not shy. We're kind of going, we're
opening our Bibles, we're teaching about the word of God
and we're seeing 5 people from that community centre being
reached by the gospel and we're believing men pray for them and
say God, would you add them in? Is that cool?
We are in this center. We kicked off some hampers and
stuff. It's a crazy number, but there's
something like 8 / 800 hampers that we've handed out into the
community and you kind of go, where are the people added Jesus
fed 5000 people like he read women, children and stuff.
And then people came back to him and he said you came because you
got food. Like you came, you know about me
because you came and you had your film and I, I am the bread
of life. It gave him an inroad to
actually preach the gospel. We sent Dave to the Philippines
last year. It was the first time that this
church has actually actively gone out of the country.
Like this church kind of going, we're going to send somebody
out. And then not only that, but we
also went to the global equipped.
So we sent guys out and I don't know if you know and you
probably don't know, but some of those who went were
supernaturally provided for by this church by other people
outside. God said actually, I'm I'm like
backing your faith and going had guys coming in from the NCMI
team ministering to us. We had relationships from
Balaclava. We had Ty most recently and Leo
and we've had Dudley, we've had Tyrone, we had Joel, Daniel,
like this is what God is doing. We came on to eldership in this
last year. So like the leadership team grew
as well. Like it doubled, right, Only
six. We could say it's doubled, but I
just want us to recognize that God is working his plan out,
right? We celebrate all that God has
done because it reminds us, as Dave said, we pray the stuff
that God has said and we look back and say, God that in the
Old Testament, they build a monument and said, you did this,
now come Lord and do it again and do it even greater.
So man, it's so we're going to celebrate today.
We're going to have lunch. We're going to set up some
tables and stuff like that. But as I said before, we do
that. We'd love to get a group photo
and then you're free. 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.