Hallelujah, hallelujah, whoop, kia ora whānau, dream team.
Hallelujah, oh it's hot here in Gizzee, the glory, the fire of heaven, thank you Jesus.
Hallelujah, hey, kia ora Jackie, Francis, kia ora Francis, Hayley, hi darling, Auckland, how are you?
Hallelujah, kia ora Jay, Helen, thank you Jesus.
So I think we'll just start with a waiata to Jesus, I just feel like worshipping him.
Hallelujah, so if you need to watch me worship, join in.
Where's my kita? Hang on a sec, I'll get my kit.
So Jess is busy in there cooking, baking.
So tomorrow morning, Jess and I are going to be on and we're going to just share some tips on conflict resolution.
The title I put on is going from the honeymoon from hell to the marriage blessed by heaven.
And so she's going to be sharing her side of the story and I'll be sharing, and so we'll just be sharing, testifying, just sharing how Jesus, how he brought us together.
How we were going to be separated but he brought us together.
He brought us together.
I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee.
Oh, I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee.
Oh, Lord, I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee.
Oh, Lord, I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee.
Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy.
Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy.
Hallelujah.
Alleluia, Alleluia
Oh Lord, Hallelujah Jesus
Now, O Lord, high, high above all the earth
You are exalted high above all gods
Now, O Lord, high, high above all the earth
You are exalted high above all gods
And we exalt You, we exalt You, we exalt You
Oh Lord, yes we do Jesus
We exalt Thee, oh Holy One We exalt Thee, yes Jesus
We exalt Thee, oh Lord, oh Lord
We exalt Thee, oh Lord, we exalt Thee, oh Lord
We exalt Thee, oh Lord, forever and ever
Glory to Your Name
Lord, we thank You for Your presence
We thank You for Your presence
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Thank You, Jesus, the Kingdom isn't meat and drink
It's peace, it's joy
It's Your righteousness that is in us
We thank You, Lord, that You're closer than breathing
And we just honour You with our breath
We honour You with our praise
We honour You with our adoration
We honour You with our affections
We honour You with our presence
We honour You with our worship
We honour You with our gratefulness
We honour You with our thankfulness
We honour You with our recognition
Without You, who are we and what are we?
We just give You all the glory and all the praise
Amen, and all the saints said, Amen
Oh, hallelujah
But I know today, we're going on to this study
So Benji loaded it onto our Embassy page
And if you can't find it on the main page
If you go where it says Units in the top left hand corner
If you just flick along, flick along
You'll come to Files and under Files
You have Module 2, Lesson 3
Module 2, Lesson 2
Module 2, Lesson 4
So we're going to be doing a Module 2, Lesson 2
Introduction to the Church
So as I was saying before
If we want to see long lasting reformation
Transformation in our nations
There needs to be a reformation in the way that we do church
And because it's not working, is it?
Our nation's not getting any better
And we need more than a move of God
We need more than a revival
Because you can have a revival
But if it revives the present system that we're doing church on
What's it going to accomplish?
And so I believe God wants to bring a reformation
He wants to reset the way we do church
And it's not just a radical change necessarily from what you're used to
But sometimes we can exalt our traditions more than
And just because it's tradition doesn't mean it was right
But we want to
Yeah, so anyway
Okay, I don't want to start rambling
So if you've got your book, I'm going to read through
Or if you've got your notes, I'm going to read through it
In this lesson, I'll explain the purpose of the church
Why God wants every believer to be planted in the church
And help you see the value of the church
of making a lifetime commitment to the church.
Now I'm talking about his church.
Church is whānau, remember?
It's not just an organisation down the road
that opens up on Sundays.
Church is a family, and a family is not just one day, okay?
Whānau is not just one day, whānau is every day.
My family, whānau is every day.
And so church is every day.
That's the concept.
The concept of it just being an organisation
like a rugby club down the road,
or the housey club, or whatever.
That it's an event that we go to once in a while.
We get our fix of sport, we get our fix of religion,
we get our fix, this is family.
So what do the words Christian and church mean?
Do you ever thought about,
what is the word Christian and church?
What does the word Christian mean?
And what does the word church mean?
See, often people say, oh, there's the church,
and they point to our building.
It's not the church, is it?
It's not the church, it's just a building.
So what does Christian mean?
So Christian, the word Christian means,
put it right in your blank there, follower of Christ.
Okay, Christian means follower of Christ.
I'm a bit hot this morning, whānau,
I've been doing the vacuuming.
Yes, I'm a good husband.
Okay, so Christian means a follower of Christ.
What does church mean?
So in the Greek, what the church means,
the word church means called out ones,
called out ones, called out.
So imagine a selector going along,
a all black selector going along,
watching rugby players play in regional playoffs.
And so the coach or the selector calls you out.
He says, oi, over here, oi, over here.
Hey, you'd be great in this team.
And so it's called out ones.
And so Jesus has called us out from living for the world.
He's called us out from being part of the world's team.
He says, oi, over here, come be part of my team.
So church means called out ones.
So the building houses,
a bunch of called out ones every Sunday.
But the called out ones, the church called out ones,
when you go to work on Monday, you're still the church.
Because you are part of the church.
The church is made up of living stones, okay?
And so we're two or three together,
the I am in the midst,
but when I'm down the street,
there's the church, there's old Norm.
No, there's the church.
Oh, there's old Jess.
Oh, there's the church.
There's Hayley.
There's Francis.
There's the church.
The church is the called out ones, okay?
As Christians, we are called out
from following the world's system
to follow God's kingdom system.
So church is not a human institution.
So you write in the blank,
church is not a human institution.
Put your notes here, otherwise this might be quite boring.
But if you don't have your notes,
you can put them off afterwards
or if you have a printer in your house.
But one way or the other,
you'll be able to print these out
because once lockdown's off,
you'll be able to go and get them printed out somewhere.
Okay, so church is not a human institution.
Man makes up his institutions.
Man makes up the societies
that gather humans around human kingdoms, okay?
God made the church to gather humans around God, okay?
So man's institutions,
they gather humans around human institutions.
Human systems, political systems, sporting systems,
societal systems, religious systems,
and they're gathering humans around systems.
See, all the religions of the world,
they go around the idols and so forth,
but it's a system as well.
But church is a heavenly, a divine,
it's a divine institution, if you like,
and it's to gather humans around God.
Church is to gather humans around God, okay?
So Matthew 16, 18,
I say also unto thee, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church.
Fill in the blanks, you already know it, my church.
Jesus is building his church.
And we've got to remember, it's his church.
If we look at the dysfunction
or we look at churches that aren't operating
the way that we would like them to operate or whatever,
then we can get discouraged.
And God doesn't want us to get discouraged
because Jesus said, I will build my church.
And so what I want to be,
I want to be part of the solution to building his church.
I don't want to be part of the problem.
I don't want to tear it down,
I want to help build it up, amen?
So the church belongs to Jesus, makes up,
yeah, belongs to Jesus.
Man makes up his organisations and societies
that gather humans to humans,
but Jesus built the church up
to gather people, humans, to God.
Okay, the church has different names
and the body of Christ,
so the emphasis that Jesus will act through us
to reach out to a dying world through his body.
So when Jesus walked the earth
and now his physical body walked the earth,
hands, he had a mouth, he had eyes, he had feet, and the body of Christ walked around the earth.
And he went about doing good and healing all those oppressed of the devil.
How God had anointed Jesus. Acts 10 38, that's your memory verse, remember it? Acts 10 38,
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power, and he went about doing good and
healing all those oppressed of the devil, for God was with them. So the body of Christ, the church,
the body of Jesus doing that then, we the body of Christ, that's what we're meant to be doing,
going about doing good and healing all those oppressed of the devil, right? Don't know why
I got my hands out. So the church, different names for church, the body, the bride, okay?
The bride speaks that we're loved by Jesus, he's the husband of the bride, our Lord, our provider,
our protector, and we carry his name. The elect, and so we're not that we're better than anyone
else, but we're better off than anyone else. So we're called the elect. The family of faith is
another name for the church. The church, the house, in the Old Testament was a temple of God,
which is where humans gathered to God, the Hebrews. Well, in the same similar sense,
that church was like the temple of God. So don't get all hung up on the words,
don't get sort of splitting hairs, it's no big deal, okay? Okay.
The importance of being planted. Oh, I love this part. So we're turning over the page now.
So you were there, so there we go. Over there. The importance of being planted in the church,
being planted in the house. So the top there, John 12, 24, most assuredly I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, write down dies. D-I-E-S.
It remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain. And so the importance of being planted,
a seed will never be a fourth fruit unless it falls into the ground and dies. And so there's
a principle here. A seed must be planted in the ground before it can grow. When a seed is planted,
the pressures from the soil crack the outside shell of the seed. Once the hard shell is broken,
the seed will automatically send a root out. Once it has a root, the seed can begin to receive
the nutrients that it needs on the soil to grow, grows up. Over time, the seed will grow into a
plant and produce many more other seeds. Jesus said that our lives follow a similar process
to the seed. We get planted, we die, and then we produce life. So what does it mean to get planted?
Getting planted is the first step of our journey towards fruitfulness, towards success. The Bible
teaches us that we must be planted in the house. Psalm 92, 13. And those that are, and you're
writing in, those that are, those that are planted, okay, are planted. So write in A-R-E-P-L-A-N-T.
Planted in the house, okay, the H-O-U-S-E. So Psalm 92, 13 says those that are planted
in the house of the Lord, okay, so next, if it's not filled in, it might already be filled in there.
So the house of the Lord, of the Lord, I think that's already in there. They shall flourish,
F-L-O-U-R-I-S-H. They shall flourish in the courts of our God. Okay, so this is Old Testament,
Psalm 92, 13. Those that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our
God. So you want to flourish and bear much fruit? Jesus said we didn't choose him, John 15, 16.
So I chose you and I ordained you that you will bear much fruit and much, God wants us to bear
much fruit. And one of the ways that we bear fruit is we get planted in the house of God.
Why do we get planted in the house of God? Because we draw from the nutrients that are going to get
out of the house of God. Now I'm talking about the house of God that's under the influence and
under the instruction of an apostle, a prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher. Why are they important?
Because Jesus ordained them, Ephesians 4, 11, we've already talked about this, Ephesians 2, 20,
that God set first the apostle, then the prophet, that he gave these different functioning ministries
so that they would grow the body of Christ, that they will equip the
saints for the work of the ministry. And so if I'm planted in the house of God, and Jess and I, we got
planted at the name, don't worry about the name of the church, I'm never going to tell you the name
of the church because people get, humans get all hung up on the denominations and so on. We were
planted in an amazing church in Ōamaru, and under that church, our pastor, he was an apostle actually.
We're extremely blessed to be raised and nourished
and mentored by an apostle.
Well, actually it's an apostle prophet.
So because we were planted in the house,
we didn't just pop along for a couple of weeks,
couple of months, over in a year or two,
and get what we could and then pop off to another church
because we felt led to go to another church
and to sit under another ministry.
And we sat under John and we sat under him,
I sat under him, me and Jess,
we sat under him for 10 or 11 years.
And I didn't want to go out from under him.
I wanted to be faithful and serve him
and be faithful to the vision that God had given him
for the church in Oamaru in North Otago.
That's how I learned how to grow.
That's how I learned to become, to move in prophecy.
That's how I learned how to move in signs and wonders.
And that's how I learned how to be a pastor.
That's how I learned how to teach.
That's how I learned how to develop the character of Christ.
Because when you're with other people,
you're not always gonna agree with other people.
And so other people help you become,
grow your, develop your character.
Other people force you, as it were,
to sort of forgive or to get over yourself
and to suck it up and to die to self,
to die to selfishness and to live for others.
You can't do that when you're apart from one another.
And that's why being planted in the house of God,
where you have to learn how to work together.
You have to learn how to develop social skills,
spiritual skills, mental, emotional skills,
because it helps us grow up and helps us become mature,
not just mature spiritually,
it helps us become mature socially,
mentally, relationally.
And sometimes, and I had enough rejection in my life
and so did Jess, that we could just run away.
In fact, I'll never forget the first time
I had an upset in church,
the first time when I realised Christians can betray you
and Christians can hurt you.
And it was a couple of elders, actually.
And my pastor had,
he promoted me to lead an evangelism programme in our church.
And only because I had that gift on my life.
And so I found winning people to Jesus is just simpler,
but there was no effort to it.
And so he put me in charge of the evangelism programme.
But unbeknown to me,
there were a couple of other elders in the church
and they thought that they were older than me in the Lord
and they thought they should be getting that job, not me.
And so anyway, what happened is that,
and I don't have to go into detail,
but what happened is that these other elders,
they went to the pastor and told him
that I wasn't doing the job that he wanted me to do well.
And basically they knocked on me
for something I hadn't done.
And so we sat down and we're having a meeting
and I thought we're having a fellowship meeting,
but, and we're going to have a cup of tea
and something to eat.
But I found out that he had a cup of tea,
but they were eating me.
And suddenly I was being accused of this and that.
And I remember sitting there thinking,
and I'm only about three years old in the Lord,
or maybe three, two, three years.
And I'm sitting there thinking, how can this be church?
I mean, we love each other, we're meant to love one another.
We're not meant to talk behind each other's back
and then bring it to the pastor and drop it on, you know,
on you.
And so I was just, I was bewildered.
So I'm sitting there and I've got to say
the old flesh rose up in me, you know.
I'm sitting there and they're bringing up these accusations
and the pastor's listening and they say,
well, what's your side of the story, Norma?
And I was, and a thought came to my mind,
you know what, if this is church,
if you want this ministry, I didn't ask for it.
If this is what you want, and I've got to say,
the flesh rose up.
I didn't say it, but I was thinking,
if you want this, you can have it.
You can take your church and your ministry
and you can stick it where the sun don't shine,
I'm out of here.
And I was biting my tongue from rising up
and just reverting back to the old man,
just stuff you, out of here.
So I know what it's like to be, to have misunderstanding,
to have sense of betrayal.
That was my early days and it's happened many, many
dozens of times since it's happened.
Not just as a member of the church,
but as a pastor of the church,
I've had that happen many times.
And why am I saying that?
Because you've got to get over it, you know?
So that meeting finished and I was angry.
I got up and I left and I was hurt.
You know what God said to me?
He said, son, cause I was thinking to myself,
I'm never coming back here again, stuff ya.
Stuff your church, stick it.
And Jesus said, are you loyal to me?
Are you loyal to me or to man?
And I said, oh Lord, this sucks.
He says, son, and he gave me a vision
and that I'm standing on a rock.
And there's all this dust around and others,
the others are standing on sand, on mud,
on lies, falsity, and I'm standing on truth.
He said, son, wait for the dust to settle.
Just humble yourself before me.
Wait for the dust to settle
and we'll be seeing who's standing on what.
And I says, oh, okay.
So I left and I tell you,
it took me two weeks to get over that.
Took me two weeks to work through that anger
and to forgive and to release
and then just invest back into those elders
and to love them.
And I still do to this day.
A couple of them passed away now.
But all that to say,
if I wasn't planted in the house,
I could have done a runner.
And if I'd done a runner,
then that part of my character
wouldn't have developed to become like Jesus.
I wouldn't have learned how to,
Jesus was betrayed.
Jesus was slandered.
Jesus was gossiped about.
False chances were put against Jesus.
And I learnt,
I went to,
we want to taste the cup of glory.
We want to taste the glory wine,
the new wine.
But Jesus said,
there's another cup too.
It's called the cup of suffering.
You all want to drink the cup of suffering?
And there's times when we're required
to drink the cup of suffering
and it's bitter and it's yuck.
But it develops, I said.
So if I wasn't planted in the house,
I wouldn't have learnt how to be like Jesus.
One thing to do like Jesus
and prophesy and cast out devils,
it's another thing to be like Jesus.
And God is more focused on who we become
than what we do.
Many will say,
but we cast out demons in your name,
did all these wonderful things in your name.
And Jesus says, I didn't know you.
Okay, so he's more concerned about
who we become than what we,
so that's why be planted,
that's one of the benefits
of being planted in the house.
If you're not planted in the house,
you're not going to learn how to develop.
You're going to learn how to be a mature Christian.
And if every time that you get hurt,
or any time somebody upsets,
if anyone upset me,
I did a runner,
then I guarantee God will bring
that same situation to my face to deal with.
He'll bring the same circumstances,
it might be different people,
but it'll be the same thing
that I have to confront.
How to forgive,
how to get over myself,
how to get over betrayal,
how to get over my insecurity,
how to get over focusing on me
and focus on Jesus.
That's one of the benefits
of being planted in the house of God.
So how does a plant grow?
It's planted in God's soil.
And so obviously,
they'll get a church
where they believe in the Bible,
at least they believe in the Bible.
Okay, and just start somewhere.
Me and Jess,
the first,
we went looking for a church,
the first church we went to.
We sat under there,
and because my heart's open,
I love the word he was saying,
but he was dead as doornail.
Man, he was dead and boring.
So we thought,
let's go to another church.
It's in our early days,
it's brand new Christians.
And we sat under John.
And as soon as he opened his mouth,
it's like he's speaking to me.
And I knew that was the church
where we're going to stay in.
And we stayed under John
for 10, 11 years.
So get planted in a church
that has good soil,
that they teach the word of God.
Now, your pastor may not be an apostle
or a prophet.
He may be a pastor,
he may be a teacher.
Ktipi, serve him.
Serve him.
Serve Jesus.
Serving him.
One another.
See, the greatest gift
is not being served.
The greatest gift
is not people recognizing our ministry.
It's not developing
or lifting up our ministry.
It's lifting up Jesus.
It's lifting up his ministry.
And the greatest gift
is serving, not being served.
And some people go to church and say,
well, I'm not gonna find my gift here,
so I'll go somewhere else.
I'll go somewhere else.
Well, like I said,
Jesus is more focused on who you become.
And you don't know
the links, the chain links,
that you might be there for a reason
to learn something.
But anyway, all that to say,
Jesus came to serve.
He came to minister,
not be ministered to.
What was the last thing Jesus did
before he left the earth?
The last act that he did
besides dying on the cross,
before that.
He had communion, but what else?
Because the thing he did,
he says, what I'm doing is an example to you.
And what I do, you do,
you follow this example.
What he did is he washed
the feet of his disciples.
He took on the form, literally,
of a sermon,
and he washed the feet of his disciples.
And he said, if the lords,
the kings of the earth,
they lord it over one another,
they rule with objective power.
He says, if I, your lord and master,
I do, if I do this,
I leave as an example.
example. So Jesus is the King of Kings, the Prime Minister of Prime Ministers,
and the President of Presidents. Instead of ruling from up here,
he rules from underneath, and he washes the feet of his people. And that's what
ministry is. Learning how to wash the feet of God's people. That's what your
gift is for. Washing your feet right now with the washing of the water of the
Word. Okay? And so if you're not planted in a house, you're not going to
learn how to wash the feet of the body of Christ. If you always leave up and go
after every year or two years or a month, and I don't know how many people
have come through the doors in the last 29 years? Thousands. Literally thousands. Very few have
planted themselves in the house. Very few have planted themselves. Excuse me. So
being planted in the house of God is so important. God promises that if we put
our roots down and get fully connected in the house, then we will. Well, the word of God
shows that, doesn't it? In Psalms, blessed is the man who is
planted in the Lord, who's planted by the streams, and his roots go down. Well, what
happens when you keep uprooting a plant? What happens when you keep uprooting a plant?
So you put a little sapling in, and say it's a lemon tree, and you put it in,
and after about, I don't know, 12 months, you say, well, there's no fruit on it, so
you uproot it, and you replant it somewhere else, and there's still no fruit,
and so you, excuse me, and so you replant it, and after another 12 months, you rip it up,
and is that tree ever going to bear any fruit? And that's what happens when,
that's what happens if a person keeps uprooting from church to church to church. They never
develop, number one, relational skills. They never learn how to develop in some of those
situations, and getting over betrayal, and hurt, and disappointment, it's not all bad,
but they never get to develop that mental, emotional, academic, relational skills,
let alone the spiritual side. They keep uprooting, and they never bear fruit,
and so that's why it's important to be, to plant yourself, get planted in one place,
and stay planted. The sad thing is that so many Christians don't want to be planted in church.
I heard years ago that there are 30,000 Christians in Auckland who used to attend
church but no longer attend church, and I'm not trying to mnemonise that, but that's shocking,
and we've got to get over that stuff, eh? So if you don't go to a church, if you're looking at
me and I'm teaching you, and you don't go to any church, and you've got a history of stuff happening,
I'm not your judge. I'm not telling you what to do or where to go. I'm not telling you that,
but I'm just telling you the benefits of why it's important to be part of a church.
See, people say, well, I'd like you to be my pastor. I'd like to tithe into your ministry
and into your church, and I'm happy with that, as long as you're not taking your tithe out of
the church that you're planted in. That tithe is to help develop and to provide for the needs of
the people in your community, how to provide for the needs of your pastor, and so, you know,
I want to keep integrity here, but if you're not part of a church, and you want to be sowing into
this ministry or to our church, I'll be honoured. I mean, that's very humbling,
but really, I can't be your pastor in the sense of we don't have personal interaction,
and it's only Facebook time. It's not real time, but you're just saying that you can't be one-on-one
face-to-face interaction with one another, and so, until you find that church, you're
welcome to be part of this one and connected to this ministry, but there we go.
Okay, Matthew 16, 18, I will build my church and the gates of hell fill in hell, or Hades shall
not prevail against it. Okay, isn't that good? You are the church, okay? You are a living stone,
and it says that Jesus is going to build his church. He's going to build you, and the gates
of hell will not prevail against you, so when we think of church, we think of the corporate church,
don't we? Usually, we think of all the people, and so, think of you. So, the church is made up
of living stones, and there's billions of living stones. You are one of the living stones,
so when Jesus talks about the church, he's talking about you personally as well,
so take this on an individual level, that Jesus said, I will build my church. As an individual,
he's saying, I will build you. That's what he's saying. I will build you,
and the gates of hell will not prevail against you. That's what he's saying.
Okay, we could make it academic and say Jesus is building the church, everyone else out
there, and the gates of hell won't prevail against them, the church.
But take it individually, let it be subjective.
Take personal responsibility.
He's speaking about you because you are the church.
Every member is an individual brick in the church.
So he's talking about you.
I will build you and the gates of hell will not prevail against you.
Have you ever thought about that?
That's what he's saying.
And so it's so important that you are planted in the house and you learn how to develop
and to be strong so the gates of hell can't prevail against you.
So imagine having a church full of people that Jesus has built and that he's built his
character into and the gates of hell can't stand against them.
Then you've got a church on earth that the devil fears.
So Jesus is building his church, he expects every Christian to be part of his church
because Christians are followers of Christ.
If we're going to follow Christ, now did Jesus go to church?
Well, he went to the synagogue.
It's the same thing, the principle is the same.
He went to an institution where God gathered people unto God, okay?
So it was a synagogue there, today it's the church.
And Jesus gathered his disciples, he waited in the upper room and so there was that transference
but it's the same principle, where humans gathered unto God.
And of course, it was his habit to go into church, it was his habit.
Every Sabbath he went into the church.
Now some say, oh, it's Saturday, it shouldn't be Saturday, not Sunday.
It doesn't matter what day it was, don't split hairs, it just doesn't matter.
That was under Hebrew law, that was, see the law is broken up into three things, there's
there's ceremonial, and there's the law of conscience, the law of ceremonial, civil,
and what's that other one, ceremonial, civil, and, anyway, I'm going to teach on that later on.
So step two, when you're planted in the house, you learn how to die, okay?
Luke 9, 23, 24, yeah.
Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him take up his cross daily and deny himself.
For he that finds his life will lose it, but he that loses his life will find it.
So when you're in church, that's when you're interacting with other Christians, the cross
is the instrument of death.
And to follow Jesus is easy, but to get on with one another, with other humans, is not
so easy, yeah?
But the cross of learning how to die daily, Paul died daily, and Jesus says we learn to
die daily.
So it's not that every day, it's not that every day there's some trial in my life, but
I've learned to deny myself and take up my cross daily, follow Jesus.
Sometimes, you know, it's sometimes, it's the seasons where I'm dying, dying, dying,
that's okay, it only happens in seasons, but when you're dead, how do you know you're dead?
People don't bug you anymore.
How do you know you're dead?
People ask me to pray for me, pastor, I want to be dead to self and dead to sin.
I say, well, you're dead to sin already, you've got to learn how to be dead to yourself.
And I can't pray for that, you've just got to die yourself, just over, you know, deny
yourself daily until he's dead.
So how do you know when you're dead?
Well, I don't know about you, but if you've seen a dead body, if you go up to a dead body,
it's in a coffin, you say, hey, who dressed you, your mother?
If you started insulting a dead body, do they get up and slap you in the face?
Of course not, they're dead.
And that's how you know you're dead, when people can insult you, people can say all
sorts of things, and it doesn't bug you anymore, it just doesn't bug you anymore, okay?
That's when you know you're dead.
How do you get dead?
Take up your cross daily, Jesus says, and deny yourself and follow him, deny yourself
for his sake.
You know, there's times when I've wanted to just react in the flesh, and I've heard Jesus
say to me, will you do, about sucking it up, and I've heard him say to me, would you do
it for me, son, would you do it for me, would you do it for me, would you do it for me?
And you know, when I think about that, I was like, yeah, I'll do it for you, I'll do it
for you.
I won't do it for myself though, I won't do it for others, but I'll do it for you.
So that's when we deny ourselves to follow Jesus and do what he would do, okay?
So die daily.
Being planted in the church will give you opportunity to develop kingdom character.
Submit to God-ordained spiritual authority in your life and develop greater authority.
You see, if you want authority flying out of you, you've got to learn how to submit
to authority over you.
I know, I heard it, oh, I've submitted to abusive authority, come on, as I said, we're
learning to get over that stuff.
And Romans 13 talks about God-ordained authority.
When God puts authority over our lives, when we resist the authority, we're resisting God,
and it releases judgments upon us. And that's why things just don't go well with Christians who
just aren't willing to submit. They might obey, but they still won't submit.
Well, I'll do that because you tell me to. But submission is an attitude. Obedience is an action.
Submission is a hard attitude, and obedience is an action. And now a kid can say,
their dad says, put the toys away, and they obey, and they're throwing them into the
toy box with it. They've got a bad attitude. It says in Hebrews 13, 17,
obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them as they have to watch for your soul.
And so I learned how to not just obey my pastor, I learned how to submit to him.
And he wasn't a dictatoring, overbearing, abusive pastor. He was a great man of God.
Some didn't mean I agreed with every decision. It didn't mean that I liked every choice that
he made in that. It doesn't matter who cares whether you agree or not. You can have your
opinion, but keep it to yourself. If an opinion comes to divide, bring division, then it's not
wisdom from above, okay? So you can keep, I've got opinions, and some of them I just keep to
myself because I divide because people don't understand what I'm talking about.
So if opinions just divide, it's wisdom from hell. It comes from hell because the wisdom from hell
is full of contention and strife, James 3. Wisdom from above is pure, peaceful,
easy to be entreated, okay? So being planted in the house, you learn how to develop this.
You develop humility by serving one another. You develop mercy and patience by forgiving others.
You develop faithfulness by attending service, church service, week after week,
and being involved in serving through midweek. You develop faithfulness. You develop generosity.
You learn how to give. You tithe and serve offerings into the house of God. You develop
generosity. You let other people get to know you, and you develop honesty and integrity.
You open up to others. You persevere, and you hang in there when things get tough.
You develop integrity. So being planted in the house of God is such a wonderful thing.
This study is about the introduction to the church. Over the page,
you can't develop these things as a Christian by yourself, just me, myself, I. I'm having church
at home today. There's the Trinity, me, myself, and I. Hey, look, if you're in jail, that's different.
But if you're at home, by choice, when there's a great church down the road,
you're not going to grow. You'll grow strange. You'll grow strange.
Okay, Matthew 20, verse 28. As the Son, okay, writing in, you might already have written in
Matthew, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served. You've been served. Okay, served.
Right and served. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give
his life for a ransom for many. Unfortunately, many Christians go from church to church looking
for the perfect church. But they don't realize that there is no perfect church on the earth.
The church is made up of imperfect people like you and me. And these Christians often don't
realize that God uses uncomfortable situations to help us identify things in our own life
that he wants to change. Sometimes they know you need to change, so I feel better. Sometimes God
says, no, you need to change so you can get over this. This might be my testimony. Hebrews 12, 7.
Endure hardships. Hardship is discipline. It's easy to blame others for our problems and make
excuses for ourselves. However, harmony and blessing flow into our lives when we choose
to live a life of humility and serving God and men. What happens if we keep uprooting a plant?
Yeah, that's what happens.
Christians who have a wandering spirit uproot themselves and move from church to church.
They never grow to reach their full potential and end up spiritually dead, like this dude.
Ah, there must be an easier way of putting pictures up. Living Māori, eh? This is a merry way.
Okay, now stage three. When you're planted in the house, you produce life, okay? You don't have
to go to church to get saved, true. All you have to do is believe in Jesus Christ, okay? You don't
have to go to church to get saved. You can get saved anywhere. But if you want to be successful and
fruitful, if you want to be productive, if you want to build what Jesus is building, and he ain't
building your ministry or my ministry, he's building his church. If you want to be fruitful, then you've
got to join the church. If you want to discover your destiny, if you want to develop your gifting
and your calling, you've got to be planted in the church. Why? Because the foundation of the church
is the fivefold, and that fivefold
are there to help equip you for the work of your ministry and to help you become
mature. And if you're not part of the church and you're not under the
influence of the fivefold, then you're not going to get equipped and you're not
going to grow. It's just simple. I mean it's common sense. If I want to be a
soldier, then I'm going to join the army. I'm going to submit myself to
corporals and sergeants and lieutenants and majors in general. I'm going to submit
myself to them. I'm going to be shouted at. I'm going to be yelled at. It's going to be
uncomfortable. I'm going to go through physical training that's going to
nearly kill me, all the way up to get on a battlefield with a rifle. It might risk my
life. But if that's what I want to be, then I'm going to learn how to submit myself
under that authority in order to have authority. St. Terence said, I am a man
under authority and therefore I have authority. And if I want to be an
all-black, then I'm going to submit myself to my coach. I'm going to submit
myself to the captain. I'm going to submit myself to rigorous training, to
uncomfortable training, to times I don't want to give up, just to get that black jersey, to
get on the field and to play for my nation. It's simple. That's a
natural principle that we all live by in the world. But it's amazing when some
people become Christians, they come to church and suddenly all this goes out
their head. That I don't have to be, I'm not under man, I'm under God. It's just
what? What? What? What? Every great man and woman of God was under a great man or
woman of God. Joshua was under Moses. Elisha was under Elijah. Timothy
was under Paul. Disciples were under Jesus. It's a pattern, a principle. It's when
you submit to authority and learn. I mean, if I'm going to be a brain surgeon, I
can't just say, I'm going to do it myself. God will show me. No, you idiot.
He'll show you nothing. It's arrogance and pride. I have to submit to those who've
gone before me and learn from the experience. And now I have to apply
myself. So anyway, coming to church, it's about the development of our
being. Get the point across? So if you don't go to church, you don't
have to go to church to get saved, but you have to go to church. You want to be
developed, okay? Number one, it says being. Success means different things to
different people. What does success mean? Okay, you got number one, being, right?
And being everything that God created me to be. Being everything that God created
me to be in life. Number two, doing everything God created me to do in life.
Fill in the blanks. Doing and do. Doing everything that God created me to do in
life. So being is about identity. I'm a human being. I'm not trying to be a
human being. I am. And I'm a son of God, okay? I'm a child. I'm the son of the
living God. I'm not trying to be. I am. I'm not trying to be a human being. I am.
It's a state of being. Sonship is a state of being. I'm the delight of my
father, you know? I'm the delight of my father. He delights in me. He sings over
me. My father does. My father God. He delights in me. That's a state of being.
And so being everything you're called to be. And it's that sonship. This is what
the embassy is about. Helping you to discover your sonship. The freedom of
being a son. And a son submits to his dad. And under dad, dad has the authorities
he's put on the earth. And those authorities that we can learn
from. It's like apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers.
But there's our boss at work. We can learn from our boss. Even if he's like
Adolf Hitler. God says, yeah, submit to him. Learn how to be like me.
What would Jesus be in your workplace? How would Jesus be? So state of being,
number one. Number two, a state of doing. And that's about ministry and destiny.
Okay. You won't find that outside of this church. Being all that God created me to
be. Okay. Going on. Doing what I was created to do. Let's turn over the page.
And okay. We've got this. And I already drew that up on the board about how to get
into Abraham's family. You had to be born into it. Abraham had three sons,
Isaac and Jacob. And Jacob had 12 sons. And his 12 sons formed the house of
Israel. And when the house of Israel was formulated in the times of 400 years in
Egypt, they went and invaded the land Canaan. And the house of Israel then,
they divided the 12 tribes, became the tribes of Israel, and it became the nation
of Israel. It became the kingdom of Israel. So born into Abraham's whanau,
whakapapa, back to Abraham. So you're born into that. You're part of the 12 tribes,
you're part of the house of Israel, and then you're a step...
in the land of Israel, you're part of the kingdom of Israel. The house extends the
kingdom. That's the principle. The house extends the kingdom. I've heard Christians
say, oh I'm part of the kingdom. I don't go to any church though. You can't be part
of the kingdom if you're not part of the house. What kingdom are you
extending? You can't be extending God's kingdom because that he ordained that
the house will extend the kingdom. Well let's go into the New Testament, that
Jesus comes. He has 12 disciples. Those 12 disciples of the Day of Pentecost are
the foundation of the house of God as it's revealed through the Old New
Testament. And they're told to go and preach the gospel of the kingdom to all
nations. And so the house of God goes to spread the kingdom of God in all the
earth. So the house extends the kingdom. I talked about this in a previous study
that if the house is dysfunctional, its kingdom impact is going to be
dysfunctional. If the house is full of gossip and bitterness and
backbiting, then its influence in the community is going to be bitterness and
backbiting. And they might be preaching about Jesus loves you and Jesus saves
and praying for the sick, but if they're bringing new Christians into a
dysfunctional house, then that's just terrible. That's why you've got to be
planted in a house that Jesus is building and that Jesus is Lord. Lord of
that house. Lord of the people in the house. So I think that's the last
page, Farmer? It is. So I hope you enjoyed that study. I hope you know all the
informative. It was module 2, lesson 2, Introduction to the Church. Got little
pictures and lets the Lord build the house. Okay. As the Lord builds the house.
What a waste of time. So Farmer, there we go. Hallelujah.
Kei te pai. So tomorrow I'm going to be doing, me and Jessica are going to be speaking
from the honeymoon from hell. It really was. I'm not joking. You're here. It was, I
demanded a divorce on the wedding night. Yeah. So here we are over 40 years later.
40 years later. What happened? Jesus happened. But it didn't just happen.
There had to be a response from me. There had to be a response from Jess for
him to restore and to heal us. So we're going to share that tomorrow. Some two or
three points of how to conflict resolution. And you might not be married
but the principles, they will help you. And you may have a great marriage.
That's kei te pai. This will just refresh you. You may be having some things you
need to, you want to enhance your marriage with. Well, these things will
help enhance. So anyway, Farmer, it's been great to be with you this morning. And I
pray that the presence and the spirit of the Most High just flow into your
household right now. And if those of you need healing, count to three, just lean
forward. I mean, a hundred people being healed, over a hundred people have
testified and sent in testimonies of healings. And many of them have been
miracles. But at least a third have been instantaneous healings. And these
aren't light things. A lot of these are long-standing issues. Some were born with
them. And it's just incredible what an honor that is to see Jesus doing this. To
me, it's humbling. But it's him that does it. And so we're getting everybody healed
out there. I have no one to pray for soon. So you need to find somebody to pray
for. So on the count of three, just lean your head forward. Just lean forward. If
you need healing in your body right now, in the name of Jesus, on the count of
three, just lean forward into the healing presence of Jesus. One, two, three.
Just lean forward. Thank you, Jesus. And straight away you felt that presence of
God just come all over you, all over your shoulders. And that heaviness, that weight
just comes out of you right now. It's like I just heard a whoosh, just go whoosh
like a wind. And your lungs just open up right there. And that
heaviness on your back, it just lifted like that. And somebody had a
tight band around your head, it just went like that. That band of wickedness, that
yoke of oppression. It's not because you're a bad person. It's because the
devil's a bad person. And he tries to afflict you. He tries to rob, steal, and
kill, and destroy. But when you lean into the presence of Jesus, light makes
darkness flee. I give you praise, Jesus. Thank you, Father. It's funny, I can hear
someone's ear go brrrrr. God is, he's healing, he's putting that frequency
back into your ear. This isn't a spiritual flutter. This is a physical
thing, okay. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. So as the presence of God comes upon
you, when I sign off, the presence of God will stay on you. It won't just leave because
We leave, it stays on you. He gets in you. God bless you whānau. See you tomorrow.
Excited to share with me and Jess, to be sharing with you. God bless you.