"A Model Church"

[Music] Welcome to the podcast of The Way Church in Adelaide, South Australia. Good morning. If I was to ask you what is God doing in the world and all of human history, I want to just consider I'm not going to get you to shout out the answer because you might have a better answer than me. No, if you were to consider throughout all of human history, and even up to the present day what God is doing in the earth, I've done a bit of looking into my Bible. So I'm going to try and broadly cover it with two things. And you would have considered what God is doing. And these are kind of the unchanging things that God is doing throughout all of human history. Number one, he's saving people from a life without him. God is in the rescue and redemption business. God is saving people from sin. He's saving them from hell. He's rescuing them from a kingdom of darkness. Throughout all of human history we see time and time again. God's people being subjected to their enemies and God comes in and he saves them. God raises up somebody to save them. He sent a savior to save us. What is the point of a savior to save? We need a savior. And if you think about all of human history from the very time the Adam and Eve fell, God said, "I'm going to send a savior." And then we see in the book of Judges every time that people rebelled against God, God would raise up a judge and say, "I'm sending a savior to come and save you and rescue you from your enemies." Prophecyan speaking for looking to Jesus, the ultimate savior who would redeem us from ourselves, from sin, from the grip of the enemy, God is in the saving business. And you know, it's one of those things that will keep going until Christ returns. Matthew 24/14 says that this gospel would be preached. This gospel, what's the gospel? The Christ is coming to save you. The Christ came to save you. The Christ died on a cross to rescue you from an eternity without him. This gospel would be preached in every nation and then the end would come. Our love last week of it, we had Joel and he reminded us that we need to preach the gospel. Why? Because God is interested in saving people. He's kind of going, "The motivation isn't results that we would say how many people saved." The motivation is the fact that they need saving. The motivation is God's love. God's desire is that every single person would come to a knowledge of him to spend eternity with him. And if we think of all of human history broadly speaking, what is God doing? He is saving people. God is in the saving business. He's interested in redeeming people. He made a way for it and he is still saving people today. And that's what Joel reminded us last week that the harvest is still ripe. It was ripe in Jesus' day and it's still ripe and it's getting riper. The closer the end time come, the end times come. The riper, the harvest gets. The brighter the gospel shines. The harder the times, the brighter the gospel, because it's the hope of the world. It's the light of the world. It's this thing that shines in the darkness. It says this thing. This thing is the only answer, the gospel. It's the first thing that I would suggest that what God is doing all throughout of all of human history is he is in the saving business and he is rescuing and saving people. He saved you, saved me. He's saving everyone. He's in the saving business. He wants to save every single person. The Bible actually tells us that it actually says that God's heart is that all men would be saved. We know that some are not, but God's heart is that all would be. And so we should carry the same heart. If God, if that is God's plan, if that is what God is doing, that is what we should be doing. All of us carrying in our heart that our heart should be that God wants all men should be to be saved, which means I want all men to be saved, which means you should want all men to be saved. Your neighbors, your friends, your people at the gym, the people that I pass when I'm running, all of this kind of stuff like when I'm running, I bought running into it again. But the point is this, my heart should be his heart. And if his heart is that all men should be saved, my heart should be that all men need to be saved. Right? And the second thing that I think God is doing, if you look at this throughout human history, is a God is busy preparing a people for himself. He spoke in Genesis 1 when he created mankind, he said, you know, I'm going to create them in my image. He made people like him and through sin and rebellion, they turned away and then he comes to a guy called Abraham and says, I'm calling you out and you will be my people and I will be your God. And then he calls the nation of Israel through human history and says, you will be my people and I will be your God. You will be my people. I will be your God and he gives them the law. He gives them these commandments to say, you're going to live in such a way because I'm preparing you as a people for me, a people that would represent me, but a people that would be like me, that would show the whole world what I am like. But most importantly, I'm preparing you for me. I'm preparing you for Christ. I'm preparing you for the end, the bride, the bridegroom, the wedding feast of the Lamb. I'm preparing a people for myself. And obviously we see once we hit Christ and everything opens up and then Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 2 and he says, now God has destroyed the barrier between Jew and Gentile bringing everyone together, creating a new man in himself, a new man. And he's what every person and say, now I'm busy, not just with the nation of Israel, but with every person that has been saved, I'm busy preparing them as a people for myself. That I would be their God and they would be my people. That if you need some scriptures for that, that's in Genesis 17, 17 to 8. Jeremiah 32, 36 to 41. Isaiah 2, 23, Romans 9, 25. This is all God saying, I'm just going to make a new person, a new group of people for myself. And then ultimately see right at the end in the book of Revelation says that the bride has made herself ready and the wedding feast of the Lamb has come. So that's the ultimate goal that God is preparing a bride for his son for this great wedding day of the Lamb. I know we have heard this, this whole thing that we're part of, does not end in a war, as much as we read the book of Revelation, we read of war times, it does not end with a war, it ends with a wedding. It ends with the bride and the bridegroom coming together, it ends with the new Jerusalem, it ends with this bride that has made herself ready through God helping her by the Holy Spirit. He's made a people ready for his son, ready for the return of him. He is busy preparing us for him. Isn't that incredible? The two things that God is busy throughout human history is number one, he is saving people, but number two, he's preparing us for his return. He's preparing us for him as a people for himself. Can you, I grabbed the tabernacle image on those slides that Dave used a couple of weeks ago because I thought this illustrates it. We know that the tabernacle, the Old Testament, it speaks in the book of Hebrews as a shadow, a type, like as if I'm standing here and the light is shining from the future, back through the cross and you get a shadow that lines back to the Old Testament. That's what the Bible speaks of, right? And so we look back, I'm sorry, it's really quite, I think Dave mentioned this as well, right? We have an altar and we have a water base and what happens? God is in the business of saving people, why? Because they come and they die at the foot of the cross and they get baptized and God is in the business of saving people. He's in the interest that people would come and they would die, be crucified with Christ, be raised again to life, be baptized as a public demonstration. He's interested in saving people. And then he's interested, I think Dave mentioned that this here represents the church. There's a golden lamp stand with the Holy Spirit, with the prayers of the saints, with fellowship. God is busy preparing a people for himself. And where is God? Yeah. God is busy, both saving people, but then adding them into the church so that he would prepare them for his son. That is what God is busy doing. And the Bible in Ephesians 310 says that his intent, God's intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God would be made known to the rulers and powers and principalities. So how is God going to do the two things that he is doing throughout all human history? How is he going to save people? How is he going to prepare people for himself through the church? His intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God, the plans of God, the purposes of God would be administrative to the world. God is not going to save the planet through politics. He's not going to save the planet through education. He's not even going to save the planet through crusades, even though crusades are good and helpful. He's going to save the planet through the church. He's going to demonstrate the church is the administration of the gospel to the end of the world. It's why we plant churches. Why do we plant churches? Last week, Joel said he wants to plant a church in Glenelk. We know Paul and Nicole want to plant a church in the East. This church was planted three years ago. Because more people need to be saved. People need to be saved and God is going to do that through the church. And so we're going to plant more churches. And we're going to keep planting churches. Not because we're a church planting group or movement or whatever. We're going to keep planting churches because more people need to hear the gospel. And they're going to hear the gospel through the church. And then the second thing, his intent was that he's going to prepare a people for himself. So again, why are we going to plant more churches? Because those people need to be saved into something. It's no good in me going if I was to travel out to the East and preach to the gospel. People got saved and I'm like, "Catch you later, I'm on my way." You guys have left to fend for yourself. No, God is going to save them into the church so that they would be prepared for him. If you think about a fireplace, you can take that down if you think about a fireplace, right? And you've got all these hot coals. If somebody gets saved, they're like a burning hot coal, right? You remember when you got saved? You were on fire for Jesus, right? You're amazing. But if you did not get added in to all the other coals, what happens when you take a coal out of the fireplace and put it over there on its own? It goes cold so quickly. And the idea is that God would ignite you by the power of his Holy Spirit. He would bring you to life, born again, add you into the church, and you would continue to burn for him among all of his other saints. And he would prepare you for himself. God's intent was that through the church, every single one of us, every single one of us, this isn't a leader thing, an elder thing. This isn't just for the people that want to go plant churches. This is every single person's heart. Is that we should have a heart that wants to see the gospel go out, see more people saved, and that we would have a part to play in maturing the body of Christ, in preparing us together for him. It's when we come to leaders and we come when to come and they say something to my life. And I have to remember they're not trying to tell me what to do. They're trying to prepare me for him. When Joel comes and he speaks in this church, he's not bringing his own ideas. He's coming and saying, "I'm here preparing you guys for him. I'm coming to equip you to reach the last." And so, when God does this and he prepares the people for himself, he's ultimately trying to prepare also an example of what he is like on the earth. When God created the nation of Israel and He pulled them together, He gave them the commandments, and He gave them all of this stuff. It was to prepare them for himself, but it was also so that all these surrounding nations could look in and go, "Wow, that is what God is like." God is truly among those people. It actually says that in, I think it's in the book of Joshua, when they're going to take the promised land. And the desire of God was that people would look in and say, "Surely God is among you." Surely, why? Because of the way that you are living, because what He's doing in among you is something we've never seen before. And it's incredible. If you look through the book of Acts, the early church, it's amazing. God takes hold of these people. They get saved. Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit falls, pentecost, tongues of fire, pretty radical stuff. Peter preachers, 3000 people get saved. What is God doing? He's in the interests of saving people. Repent to be baptized so that you may be saved. Like, what must we do? We're going to get saved. God is in the interests of saving people. And then it says they devote themselves to the apostles teaching, to fellowship, to breaking a bread, to prayer, all of this kind of stuff. And then other people are starting to be added. Because they're looking and kind of going, "What is this thing?" What is this thing? What is this move of God that is happening? Why is it that you guys care for each other and the way that you do? Why are you looking after each other the way that you do? Why are you holding the things of God so highly? And other people, the Lord, is adding to their number from the outside in, because they're kind of going, "What is this people that is doing this thing? What do you like?" And they're actually getting saved through that. That's why we preach the gospel. We must also remember that the way that we live out the gospel is a huge witness to the world. And that this community, the church, is to be something that, so it's radically different. It's transformational. That I cannot join the church and continue living my own life. In fact, I am called, and every single one of us, is called to lay our lives down for Christ, and for one another. My life no longer belongs to me. Because I died at the foot of the cross, number one. And God has now called me to lay my life down for my friends. That is where I live. That is where we are to live. That I'm called to lay my life down for His plans and His purposes. And His plans and purposes is number one to seek and save the lost. Number two to prepare His bride. I want to ask you, are you laying your life down to prepare His bride? To prepare the people around you and next to you. Are you laying a life down for it? We're going to look at a church, and that actually Paul said, this is a model church. This is what the church should look like. This is somewhat of what God is doing through the church. And he says, this is something that I'm going to hold up. So this is an example of a really good church that you can actually imitate. That's quite interesting. The very first thing that they say about this church. You can put that up. One Thessalonians. It's the Thessalonian church. One Thessalonians, one verse two. The very first thing it puts on. We give thanks to God always for all of you constantly mentioning you in our prayers. Verse three, sorry. Remembering before our God and Father, your work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing of a model church is that it works hard. If your church life, quote unquote church life, is comfortable and convenient, then I would argue that you're probably not living the church life that God wants you to live. Because Christ died for this. And that was not convenient and comfortable. God has called me to lay my life on the altar. And Paul is writing to this model church. He's saying, I'm remembering before God the fact that you work hard. That you persevere. That you lay your life down. And the motivation is faith, hope, and love. Right? It's not because the elders have said you need to work harder. And you need to be at more meetings and all of that kind of stuff. The motivation is the fact that God has filled me with faith, hope, and love for his church. That is driving me to lay my life down. We read of Paul, we read of the early church, right? These guys were laying their life down so much for the early church. You know, we look through human history and the fact that I even have a Bible here printed was because somebody laid down their life a few hundred years ago so that I could have a printed copy of my Bible. The fact that I can meet in homes is like a home group kind of thing. It's because some guys 40 years ago decided that, you know, we need at home groups. And we're going to stand up and say we need to meet in homes because that's what the early church did. And it was hard going and they broke ground. The fact that we have a heart to plant churches is because guys said, hey, we need to get back to what the Bible says and we need to start going out and planting churches and seeing the nation saved and sending people out. And I'm living in that. We live in that in the convenience of that. But God has got stuff for us to break ground in. And Paul says, one of the marks of a model church is that they would work hard and what God is doing. That I would work hard to share the gospel, that I would work hard to prepare the bride for his return. I would not sit back and I'd be like, hey, it's cool, like I'll leave it up to, I mean, I'm an elder. But like, in my case, maybe I'll leave it up to the NC and my team. It's their job. It's their job to go visit churches. It's their job to pray for the churches. It's their job to go minister and to give and all that kind of stuff. It's cool. Like, I'm easy. No, no, no. I'm called to work hard. I'm called to lay my life down for the gospel and for his church. Every single one of us have the same call. Every single one of us are called to do this. There are ways that we can do it within our limitations. I think this is the other thing. Sometimes we can look at our limitations and there are realities to our limitations. Sometimes health can prevent us from traveling. Money, circumstances. Don't have a car. You can't drive it together. Stuff like that, right? But we find a way in God to do what God is doing. And we say, God, give me a way to do and be part of and to lay my life down for the thing that you're doing. And that sometimes is hard. It requires us to be inconvenienced. It requires us to. So if I was to be like, you know what, if I only prayed when it was convenient, if I hadn't read my Bible when it was convenient, if I only called somebody when it was convenient, convenient for me, I'm probably not living the model church life that God wants me to live. But you know, you look at Jesus and he's up early praying. Betcha, some days he probably woke up and was like, this is not convenient. This is not convenient. I read my Bible, I'm just like, I have four young kids, sometimes it's not convenient to read my Bible or to get up, I have to get up earlier to make sure I can read my Bible before my kids come. That's not convenient. But we have to do it. Why? Because I need to be a model, lay my life down for this church, lay my life down for what God is doing in me, lay my life down for what he's doing in our world. We are called to lay our lives down. So we're going to keep looking, we're going to look at this model church, what does, what does it mean to actually live this out as a model church? The first one is, model church works hard. The second one, one verse four, one Thessalonians one first four. We know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you next verse because our gospel came to you not only in Word but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. A model church is convinced of gospel power. Paul writes in Romans chapter one, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is very power of God unto salvation, I am not ashamed of the gospel." A model church is convinced of gospel power. Can I ask you, are you still convinced that the gospel works? Are you still convinced that the good news of Jesus works? I met with somebody, I was chatting with somebody in our church, they came and they visited and they were just talking about how somebody, like they'd seen a radical change over a couple of months and the only answer I could give, and they were like, "I'm beginning to believe that the gospel has power again." A beginning to believe, I'd lost hope in the church, I'd lost hope in the gospel but I'm beginning to believe that the gospel has power again. It doesn't shy away from it, it doesn't shy away from the message of Jesus, it doesn't try and get people to church through good coffee, through fancy lights, through good preachers, it trusts the power of the gospel to save. Do you trust the power of the gospel to save when you speak with your friends, when you pray for somebody, when you have come to community group, do you trust the power of the gospel? Are you convinced by it? Because I think sometimes we can trust it up here and we're like, "I think the gospel works, but are you convinced in here that the gospel has power? That the gospel will change things." The good news of Jesus, and I love this because this scripture doesn't just say that this gospel came to us and we heard it but it said it came to it full of the Holy Spirit and in power and in full conviction. Again, that Roman scripture of the Paul riots says, "For I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the very power of God." The gospel carries power. The gospel is anointed by the Holy Spirit, the gospel brings conviction, it's why when Peter preaches in Acts chapter 2, the people say, "We were cut to the heart. What must we do to be saved? Why?" Because the gospel comes with the power of the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. Do you trust and are you convinced in gospel power? Because there's nothing else that is going to save on this planet. I'm never going to save you. Good coffee isn't going to save you. It's great, but it's not going to save you. Only the gospel will save. Our model church is so, it's boasting so much about the good news of Jesus. Even when we share our testimony, I think sometimes we do share what God has done and it becomes heavily weighted to how bad we were. Then right at the end, we're like, "Oh, but Jesus stepped in and everything's good now." When we share our testimony, when we share about what God is doing, it should be a little bit about us and a lot about him. "Hey, I was a wretch, but man, he came, he died, he rose again, he set me free, he did all of this. Glory to him." Are you convinced by gospel power? Chapter 2, verse 1 of 1 Thessalonians, and actually this is a continuation of 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 2, this is kind of an overstudy, this is Paul writing, Paul, Silas and Timothy are the guys that have come, "You yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain." Paul, Silas and Timothy are part of an apostolic team, a part of a team working into different churches in a region and is going, "You guys, Thessalonians knew that our coming to you was not in vain." In other words, a model church knows that apostolic ministry brings results, that it actually does something and means something to the church. Last week we had Joel Daniel preach, and I'm not going to ask you to put up your hand, but if you have not listened to the sermon, if you are not here and you haven't listened to it, you need to listen to it. Not because it was just a good message, but because a model church realizes that the apostolic team does something that nothing else can do, that the apostolic ministry brings something into the fabric of a church. It's not just another guest ministry, it's actually something that builds into the foundation of a church. And so it should be a priority of every single one of us to listen to it. You can actually, I think on Spotify, you can see the transcript. I read through it last night again. It should be the priority of all of us to take what they have said and pray it through and get it in because we know that the apostolic ministry actually achieved something. The reason we bring guys in, and when we bring people in, it should become a priority in our hearts to be there, to be in the room, to hear what God is doing, and if we can't, we're listening to the message as soon as it's up. We're getting this thing in, why? Because a model church believes that apostolic ministry actually is required and necessary for that little building up of the church. And Paul says, our coming to you is not in vain. And this is the church themselves are like, we received him, and it actually goes on. It says, you receive what we had to say, not just as the words of people, but actually is the words of God that God had sent us to you. Do you believe last week that when Joel came that God had sent Joel to us? Not that we had just messaged him and be like, "Yo, you want a preach on the weekend?" Because you know, we wanted a weekend off. That is not the case. We must believe that God appointed that and God sent Joel to us. And that his coming to us was not in vain. And the way that it's not going to be in vain is when we take hold of it, we say, we are going to do something with this. And that's what this model church did. They took what God had spoken and they did something with it. In fact, the earlier on in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul says that youth Thessalonians became imitators of me and imitators of us as the apostolic group. You became imitators and you lived out what we had said. And then he concludes with our coming to you was not in vain. What's the proof that the apostolic ministry brings results? It isn't just a good sermon. It's the fact that we actually do something with what they said. So we should hold apostolic ministry, that the team ministry in such high honor, not because they elevate themselves because we say that is very important for us. And the way that we show that it's very important is we do something with it. It's the way you honor somebody who preaches up here, whether it's me, whether it's somebody else. We take what they've done and we do something with it. And that's how we don't take these things in vain. In verse 2 13, there's another thing that the model church does. It says, we thank God constantly for this, that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, sorry, which you heard from us. You accepted it, not as the word of men, as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. You can closely link to that, but a model church honors the word of God. It honors the word of God. When somebody comes and we did this on Friday night at our community group, because somebody else was sharing to us, well, Karen was actually sharing to us in our community group, but we always start by saying, you know what, it doesn't matter who's sharing. We honor this. And I so loved it because I had so many scriptures in this because this thing is the thing that we honor. If somebody's put their hand up and say I want to share something from the screen. and I've put it together and it's sound doctrine. Please share with us because I want to honor that as the Word of God and say, I want that to change me. And he says, which you heard from us, which is at work in you. Again, how do we honor the Word of God? We allow it to have its work in us. When somebody sits, or I hope this is a case, it is most of the time. When somebody sits with us and asks us for advice, our first point of call is to give them advice from here. Not my personal, I can tell you a little bit of how we've walked out in experience. But ultimately, this is the advice I give because we honor this. Honor the Word of God. A model church honors the Word of God. It means when somebody's preaching here, means I've got a no pad, I've got my Bible out. I'm not scrolling Facebook. I'm not doing any of that on my phone. I'm actually honoring the Word of God. I'm paying attention to what's going on. Sometimes there are distractions. We try to minimize those. But it means when somebody said, let's pull out the Word of God together. I'm not like, yeah, it's fine. Just talk to me about the Word of God. I'm like, no, I need to honor the Word of God. Interesting in the Old Testament. I'm not going to make you do this today. In the Old Testament, when they found the book of the law in Ezra's time, when they're rebuilding, you made them, they all stood up. When Ezra found this and he opened up the book and they all stood up as he read the Word. Such honor for the Word of God. It's going to have found the book of the law and they all just kind of go, okay, we need to honor this thing. This thing carries the words of life. This thing is important. And it's not because it's words on a page and it's just a nice book but because we believe it is the Word of God. And so we want to honor the Word of God. And so I would encourage you every time you open this, every time somebody else opens this, how are you going with your honoring of the Word of God? It also means that I prioritize the time associated with it. It's not an afterthought. If I honor something, it's not an afterthought for me. It's not just, yeah, I'll just read my Bible again when it's convenient and stuff. No, I honor the Word of God by giving it. It's a lot of time by saying actually, it needs to be the first thing for me. It's the first thing I read in the morning. It's the last thing I read before going to sleep, always. Because I want to honor the Word of God beginning and end of my day. How are you honoring the Word of God in our gatherings but also in your personal life? How are you going with honoring the Word of God? It should be the highest honor. Verse two, verse 14. It says, "For you, brothers, "became imitators of the churches of God "in Christ Jesus that are in Judea." And moral church becomes imitators of godliness. They endured suffering, they imitated Jesus, the apostles and other churches. And moral church becomes imitators and finds good examples and imitates them. It's interesting because, you know, we've got obviously a together night tonight and we belong to a partnership of churches through the NCMI team, right? And moral church does not say, "Hey, we have all the answers "and we could do this on our own "and thank you, we don't need any of your help." And moral church actually looks out and says, "Hey, what they're doing over there, that's really good. "I'm going to imitate that." Paul says, "You became imitators of me "and I want to commend you for that "because you found a godly example and you imitated it." For all of us on a personal level, I would encourage you if you don't have somebody that you're looking at and you're like, "Actually, I need to imitate that." In fact, the Bible tells you somebody you should imitate. Immitate the faith of your leaders. Bible actually gives us that as a clear thing to imitate the faith of your leaders in their way of life, consider their way of life and imitate their faith. I think is the actual verse. So the Bible gives us people to imitate. And Paul says here as an apostolic guy, he's saying, "You imitated me. "You watched my way of life, the way that I lived among you "and you chose a good godly example and you imitated it." And here he says, "And you became imitators, "not just of me, but of the churches in Macedonia. "You saw how they endured persecution." There was actually so history in the way that it happened is poured preach in all these churches and then he came to Thessalonica and all these other churches had gone through persecution. Persecution hit Thessalonica and they effectively have looked at these other churches and went, "Okay, this is how we get through." This is how we get through and a model church finds godly examples and imitates them. And so a model church becomes imitated as first of Christ. Paul says, "Follow me as I follow Christ." But he also says that he does say, "Follow me." This is actually find a godly example and imitate godliness, imitate godliness. There are so many good examples of people who endure it to the end. We have guides in our church who have led churches incredible ways and pioneered things that we could only imagine. Man, there's something of that that we can kind of go, "I want to imitate the faith." I want to imitate that example and all of us should be like, "Man, we need to imitate this." Just a short time, we might land on this next one. Which is in Thessalonians 3 verse 6. It says, "But now that Timothy 6, "but now that Timothy has come to us from you "and has brought us the good news of your faith "and love and reported that you always "remember us kindly and long to see us "as we long to see you." And then it goes on about how they're standing fast in the Lord and Thanksgiving and stuff. But here's another thing about a model church is that they were focused on a work beyond themselves. This church, if you read this verse here, so basically Paul has, he's in another town and he's stressing out about the Thessalonians. He's heard this persecution and he's like, "Man, I really hope they don't give up on the faith. "I really hope the persecution doesn't rock the boat." And so he sends Timothy to go to go, "Can you go find out how the church is doing?" And so Timothy wanders over to Thessalonians, wanders over, a bit more of a journey back in those days. But he comes to Thessalonians. And what he sees is not a church that is scared of persecution, although they're a bit like, "Man, how long is this persecution going to come?" But they are rock-solid in faith. And in fact, that church then says, "Hey, Timothy, can you tell us how Paul is?" Because we really want to see Paul. We really want to know what Paul is doing. That's what we're reading here. But now that Timothy has come to us from you and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us. This church, while they are undergoing persecution, it still never becomes about them. They're saying, "Well, yeah, we know we're under heavy persecution, "but Timothy, tell us how Paul is. What's Paul doing? What's going on over in that church? We want to pray for them. We want to be part of what's going on over there." And so then Timothy comes back and he's like, "Paul, this is what's going on." They actually want to know how you're doing. They're rock-solid. They're standing firm and they encourage by your words. But also, they want to know how you're doing. They long to see you. A model church looks out from itself. Yeah, we were talking, even on a little bit on Friday night, just the quickest way to overcome sin and issues of pride and stuff. It's just to look out, just to look at somebody else and just begin to pray for somebody else. And here's this church, this model church that is like, "Man, we're going through some hard stuff, "but we're never going to turn in with. "We're never going to turn in with." And we do need to pray for things here and we do pray for our church as well. But we are so concerned with what God is doing, not just here, but in our city. We are very concerned, not concerned as in back and so, but we are concerned because we want to be part of what God is doing in our city. And our job is a model church to be an example. It's to be like, "God, what are you doing beyond us?" The reason we pray in our prayer meetings for other nations is not because we've run out of things to pray for us. It's because a model church is concerned with what God is doing beyond ourselves. And so we send messages out and we say, "Tell us how you're doing. "Tell us what's going on and together nights and stuff "are an opportunity for us to come together "to be like, "Hey, tell us, how is your church? "How are you doing?" It's why we sometimes as an eldership team and I'd encourage you guys if you're feeling God to come and speak to us. It's why we sometimes just go and visit the other churches in our city. Because we long to see them in here of what God is doing. And yes, we could call them, but we want to see the people. We want to be part of the people because we believe that God is doing something way bigger than ourselves. And Joel said it last week and he said that the without partnership, we will never see the fullness of what God wants to do in our city. Because we don't have it all. Other churches don't have it all. And in fact, when the Bible refers to church, it doesn't refer to this little gathering of however many people. It actually refers to the church of a city or the churches in a region. And so it never becomes about us. It becomes always about what God is doing in our city, what God is doing in our region, what God is doing in the nations of the world, going back to what God is busy doing. A model church is concerned with what God is doing. It's concerned we're okay. We need more churches in Glenelg. We need churches. We pray on Wednesday night for a church to be planted in the CBD, the partners with NCMI. Why? Because people need to be saved. And we have a burden for that. And because we believe that God needs to prepare people for Himself, we want to pray beyond ourselves. We want to go beyond ourselves. And a model church is always concerned looking out. Hey, tell us how that's doing. And as individuals, I would encourage you that even if you just boil this down to you as an individual or you as a family, how much of your prayer life is about to you? Now, how much is your prayer life about other people in this church and for other churches in our city? In your personal prayer time, because a model church is not so not concerned about themselves so much, but is busy looking out and praying out and praying into the nations. I'm so encouraged. Not sure if you still do it, Dudley, but he used to share that he has a list of all these countries in the world and prays through the countries in his prayer time. It says, "Actually, I just want to be unpraying for God's plans and purposes in the nations of the world." That is a model church. That's God's heart for all of us. We would see God's purposes and plans out worked, not just here, but beyond ourselves. Do you want to be a model church? Convincing. Yes. Do we want to see God build us up into an example that even like the Apostle Paul? Well, let's use it in our context. Entima, right? The guys on the Entima team say, "Hey, you want to know what a model church looks like? Go to the way church in South Australia." Spend some time with them. You'll know what living this thing out, this looks like. We won't have all the answers. That's part of my prayer, not that people could look at us, but that we could be like, "Man, this is New Testament Christianity. This is what we're called to." And it's going to be hard. Beginning of that, a model church works hard, because becoming a model means you've got to pioneer, you've got to break ground, you've got to do things differently. But if so, if you believe that we're called to be a model church and you're like, "Yes, Lord, I'm preparing you. It's going to cost you. It's going to cost you." And it's going to cost you more than you think it's going to cost you. And it's going to keep costing you until Christ comes back. But he laid down his life for this. He laid down his life for this. And so then I want to carry that same heart and lay my life down for this as well. Amen? And Father, we thank you for your church. We thank you for what you're doing in our city and beyond us, that you are a redeeming God. You are saving people. Even now this morning in our city, people are getting saved. Across our country, people are coming to a knowledge of Christ that choosing to die at the foot of the cross and be buried and raised enough to be born again. We thank you for that, that right now across the city and this nation. And that you are busy preparing and raising a people for yourself. And you are calling different congregations, different local churches to become models of New Testament church, New Testament Christianity, that you would be able to say, "Here are people that represent me." Well, and Father, we want to commit to being those people. We want to commit to being that kind of group of people that are a model of what you are doing in the earth. There would be so concerned and obsessed with what you are doing that we would lay our life down for it, for King and for Kingdom. Lord Jesus, may you fill our gaze. May we be so obsessed with the gospel. And so illuminated by the gospel that as the things get hard, it would be such a joy. As Joel reminded us last week that there was a joy in pioneering. The while there was hard work, we would still enjoy it. I say, "Yes, but Christ, but Christ, I'm willing to lay everything down for the cause and purposes of Christ. God, would you help us? God, would you help us in everything?" In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Thank you, man. Well done. Awesome. Yeah, I'm challenged by that, guys. Like, I'm really challenged at the moment in life. And what, you know, God's put a heart in us, you know, as leaders in this church to get back, like, you know, that they're getting back to the scripture thing is just really speaking to me at the moment, like, where it would seem like in the Bible, God's constantly trying to bring His people back to His ways. And I think that the season that we are in as a church, not just in the church in this city and in this nation and beyond, I think God's trying to call His people back to the biblical model of what church is. And that's an exciting thing, but a challenging thing. And it's going to cost us. And so I hope that we're, you know, committed to that. And gosh, there's some things that I just need to commit to in a great way in my life. And as leaders, we got to go first, you know, so we're going first. We're committed, we are, guys, we are committed to this. We are committed to the Bible-based believing church in this city. And so, guys, come along. Put yourself out. Be inconvenienced for what God's doing in the city in the coming weeks and days. This is a good thing. We won't regret it. When we stand before God one day, we won't regret being inconvenienced for His plan and for His purpose. We'll actually go, gosh, I'm so glad that I put myself out for that because it was bigger than me. Isn't that great? Wonderful. Have a great day, bless you. Thank you for joining us for today's message. For more information about the Way Church, please visit our website at thewaychurch.com.au. Have a blessed day.