Building Kingdom Relationships

[music] Welcome to the podcast of the Way Church in Adelaide, South Australia. Wonderful. I don't want to go too far away from, you know, what Peter said there, you know, he said that, you know, we're going to stand before the King of Kings one day. All of us are going to do that. And, you know, those that don't know him, it's like, I don't know you, I'm sorry, just like, depart from me, I never knew. Gosh, you wouldn't want to hear those words. Like, I, that's fear of the Lord words right there. But there's a reality to that because Jesus wasn't just saying, you know, you don't want that. He's saying that that's going to happen. That people will stand before the Lord. And he will say, depart from me that I never knew. And they will go, but what about all the stuff that we've done? And he says, I didn't know you. Those are strong words, guys. And Jesus said those words. We would be, we've got to take stock of those words. Because whether we're, you know, declaring to be a Jesus follower in this room or not, some of us may not be sitting here going on a follower of Jesus. Many of us are. But those guys thought that they knew Jesus as well. And so God's not messing around with salvation. God's not messing around with the call. That's upon us. It is such a wonderful invitation to follow and serve the Lord. But it has to be a, you've got to be given over to this thing. Like wholeheartedly, guys, wholeheartedly serving the Lord without reserving any part of your life for yourself. And so I don't, like, I don't even know. I'm just, I'm trying to just be in step with him in what is wanting to say and do this morning. But what I do want to talk about this morning is relationship. And everything that I've just said now is our relationship with him. How you relate to him? Who he is to you. Like, who do you say that I am? And so our relationship with the Lord is, it's the beginning of, of every relationship of it. It's got the beginning of everything that you're ever going to do that's going to count for the Lord begins with your relationship with him. I was reminded someone said that we're all going to stand before God. And none of us are going to be in this place where we're not going to regret anything. Like I already know now that I stand here that I could have taken greater advantage of the call that God's put on my life. I could have been stepping into more of what he had for me already. And every single one of us are going to realize that there was more, that the Lord had more for us. He wanted to do more through you and I. He wanted, you know, when things wrap up, he wanted to do more through the way church and we saw him do. And it wasn't God. It was us. And so we have to change because if God's unchanging and he has a will and he wants to do something here and we don't see that fulfilled to its fullness. For one, we're the problem and two, we need to change the thing that would have made that we would have seen God do more if we had have been more willing to change. And so change has to happen and change can happen in an instant. You get to make a decision in your heart how much you're going to give to the Lord and how how wholeheartedly you're going to serve him. That doesn't have to be tomorrow. That can be now. That can be in a moment now where you can just go, Lord, I know. I am convicted by the words that you're speaking to me in my heart and I don't want that. I want better things and you can say, yes, Lord. Then you say, help me, Lord. Right? Because it's through the Spirit of God that you follow him, not through just your choices. The choices is like the gateway to saying yes to the Lord, but then it's through following him and it's through partnership with the Holy Spirit that you walk this out. And that's relationship with the Lord. And so we're going to look at the significance of relationships with our relationship with him firstly. The significance of our relationships with each other and then our significance with relationships outside of this local church into our city, into the nation, into the nations of the world. It's all through relationship. So we're going to start. I'm going to just going to start with this great call that we have acts one verse eight, acts one verse eight says, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Power to what, when you think about the power of God, sometimes we just go power to power to do this and to heal and to see like, you know, gold dust coming from the sea like, you know, power, power, power, power, power to what guys. It says that you receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, that you shall be my witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, into the ends of the earth. If you lay your hands on someone and the power of God's there and they are healed, like when, when the Holy Spirit healed Aaron's leg this morning, it was so that he could bear witness. He bore witness of what God did over there and that brings glory to God. It's the power of God is not just so that we can go, wow, wow, we're so powerful and God's moving through us powerfully. It's so that we can bear better witness of who he is. The power of God is to bear witness. We are called to bear witness in Jerusalem. And so for our context here, that would be in our immediate community. It's where the church is. It's where we live. It's our community. Judea would be like the surrounding regions, you know, into the city, the guys that are up at Gateway, stuff like that. We're in the same city. It's the surrounding sort of regions and maybe beyond that as well. Samaria is beyond our familiar communities. It's like, you know, into the nation and way further than that. And then it's to the ends of the earth. Obviously these are the nations all around the earth. We are called to bear witness through every, through all of those locations in your life here, in the broader city, in the nation where we live and then across overseas, across the waters to the nations of the world. And it's the power of the Holy Spirit that enables us to do that. And so we are, we are in Adelaide. And there's a city church in Adelaide because we are a small part of the church in Adelaide. We need to understand that and I'm going to continue to say that because the way, this isn't the church in Adelaide, the way church. There's not a whole bunch of different churches in Adelaide. There is a church in Adelaide. It is the city church. And the churches are connected together. How are the churches connected together? How are we connected together with Kingdom Life or Gateway and, you know, the guys up at Balaclava? Through relationship, we have relationship, we relate to them. You know, we partner with a team called NCMO. These are people that we relate to through relationship. Does this make sense? It's a relationship. We need to have relationships beyond ourselves so that we can partner, so that we can be a part of what God's doing beyond ourselves. It's a relationship. Jesus wants to build his church and he uses relationships. And again, I sort of started. It starts with our relationship with Jesus. I don't want to just move on from that. Our relationship with Jesus is the most important relationship that we have. Your relationship with Jesus is more important to you than your relationship with your husband or your wife or with your kids or with your best friend. That relationship there. I don't like my Hillary. I love Hillary. She's wonderful. But she doesn't give me life. She doesn't empower me to be a witness. She doesn't empower me to love. My relationship with God is where all of this starts with Jesus Christ. Mark 13 verse 14. This was read to me throughout the week. And it's just really interesting to me because there's been a whole lot of thoughts and stirrings that I've had that God's connected together through various conversations with other people and stuff, which is wonderful. Do you know what that is? Relationship. Like he's speaking to me through other people and he's connecting the dots and he's broadening what the picture that I have of who he is and who the church is. And so Mark 314, it says, then he, this is Jesus, then he appointed 12, that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have power to heal sickness and to cast out demons. Jesus appointed the 12 apostles, but I'm highlighting this, that they might be with him. He called them to himself and said, follow me. Jesus built relationships with 12 guys, close relationships, they followed him everywhere, they were with him, right? That he might send them out. Jesus built close relationship so that he could send them out, right? So those two things. So before mission, because we have a mission, what was the mission that you'd be empowered by the Holy Spirit to to be a witness to all of the regions. So that's the mission. So before mission, relationship, before we can step into the call of God, relationship, we need to be with him. I can think of all these scriptures are just going through my mind. You know, they, when Peter got up and preached and they were blown away because this guy just a fisherman, but he had been with Jesus, right? Being with Jesus is, is where we get transformed. It's when we get empowered to be a witness. So it's, it's with relationship with him. That hasn't changed today, guys. Jesus is seated on the throne in heaven, but he sent his Holy Spirit. Jesus said, it is better than I go than if I stay here. Because if I go, then I'll send my Holy Spirit. That means that Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to be living inside you. That wherever you go, you take Jesus with you. He says, I'll never leave your forsake you, but Jesus is on the throne. So how is he with me today? Through the Spirit of God that lives inside me. Right? You can't walk away from Jesus. You can't walk away from God. If you're a born again believer because the Spirit of God is in you, that's a wonderful truth that we have. We should never be dry. Jesus said that like come to me, you are a thirsty. I'll give you water and you'll never thirst. What does that mean? That the Holy Spirit lives inside you and you never have to be dry. You never have to be heavier. Right? Put aside the sin. Put aside every weight that so easily ensnairs you. You can put it aside. You can have life. You can have freedom. You can have peace through the Holy Spirit that dwells in you, but you need to know how to relate to him. You need to know how to come into his presence or how to recognize his presence with you. The Lord's stirring this up in us as a church because if we're going to be successful in the call, if we're going to see people saved, if we're going to see people raised up as leaders and all of these things, if we're going to be successful in seeing what God's planted this church to do, it's going to take personal relationship with God as individuals. I look around this room and I think, I'm sort of just robbing everything that Dudley said, but you know what? We sat with Dudley on Saturday, right? He spoke some things and it just hit me in here again. And I thought, well, you know, it's not stealing if it wasn't his thing to begin with, right? Like, so it's the Lord's thing, right? But I look around this room and I see potential. I see potential, guys. I see what you could be if the Holy Spirit captivates your heart and empowers you to bear witness. There is no one in this room that can't be used powerfully, for the gospel that can't see people come to know him, that can't play a hand in raising us up to be Christ-like, that can't, that wouldn't play a hand in the sanctification process. You can't be too young, you can't be too old, you can't be too broken, you can't be too hurt, because he can heal you, right? He can bring you up to maturity, spiritual maturity doesn't matter, it doesn't pen, it's not pending on how old you are physically. There can be someone who's your age-stirring, that's more spiritually mature than someone who's, my Nana's age who's sitting directly behind you there, right? You could be more mature than her if the Spirit of God was active and powerful in your life to transform you, to raise you up. And that's what he has for you, man, and you too, Jay, you guys, you're not too young for this man, like he's raising you guys up to be a bear witness of who he is. None of you have gone too far, none of you have done the wrong thing too many times, none of you have messed this up too much to not to be used powerfully by the Lord. But you actually have to believe that, right? And I could go around this room and I could speak to every single one of you guys, and I could say that there's more, that you are so much more than you know, so much more than you know, and I feel like we spend a lot of time, even as leaders in this church, just trying to get you guys to do the stuff and not helping you to understand who you are, not to help you, not to see for you, the road that's ahead to see who he's created you to be. You know, and I'm not going to sit here and start pointing back, God's showing me things for you guys, right? If you want to hear those things, come and speak to us and be open, I'm way off my notes, I'm nowhere near where I need to be, that's maybe that's not true, maybe I exactly where I need to be, right? So before mission, it's relationship. I have like realized in the last few weeks that I've moved away from the truth of the things that I'm saying to you guys, that I'm like because when God enables you to do things, it becomes very easy to do them in your own strength again, right? Like I can, guys, I don't have to go and spend time with God and you know spend hours and hours on getting a message to come and preach to you guys, I could just, I could, like I'm not trying to be boastful here, but I could just open my Bible in the morning and look at a scripture and then I could stand here and talk for half an hour about it. That's not good, right? That means that I'm relying on my own abilities and not the spirit of God that lives in me. So the Lord's leading me back to this place of dependence on him and it's just shutting the door to my life and to the busyness and to all of the things that I need from him and just being with him. I have a million questions for God. As a leader in this church, I have a million questions about what do I do with this? How do I do this? What am I supposed to do with this person? How am I supposed to lead this way? What are we supposed to do next year? Who are we supposed to have in? Where are we supposed to go? Where's the mission field that you have for us? What's the nation that you've put in our heart? Where should we be going? I have a million questions for the Lord and He's just showing me that no, just put your questions aside and come and be with me. Come and be with me and I will speak. I will lead you. I will guide you, but not in the way that you want me to. I want you. You need me, right? It's powerful stuff. Maybe we need to put out our questions aside for God and just push the note part aside and just be with Him. Just say, "Lord, here I am." I think that's exactly what we need to do. I think that the season that the Lord has us in is a season of Lord. Here I am. Amen. Is that good? Can we respond to that? Are you guys in a alliance with that? Yeah. So what are we going to do? We're going to do it, right? We're going to actually have to do that. We're actually going to have to, we may need to rearrange our schedules. We may need to say things that are known to certain things in our life. I heard someone say a couple of weeks ago, they would say, "When you're young, the Lord leads you and builds you up through your yeses." You're saying yes to everything. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. As you get older, the Lord leads you and your nose. Because you can't do everything, you need to work out what it is that He's put you on this earth to do and say yes to that and give yourself over to that wholeheartedly. You can't have your hands in ten other baskets and try to be a professional at everything. You know the 10,000 hours thing? Like if you do anything for 10,000 hours, like you'll be proficient in that. You'll be professional in that. You would be the best at that than almost almost everyone else. around you. 10,000 hours. There's not enough time in your life to do 10,000 hours of three different things. It's like you're never going to master everything. And so the Lord's put specific calls and talents and abilities on us in our lives. We need to find what that is and we need to say yes. And then we need to say a whole lot of knows to everything else that everyone else and that the life is trying to draw you into to get you to spend time doing nothing. And again, I would say for us in this season it would just be a, say no to everything else and say yes to being in his presence. Give him 10,000 hours. 10,000 hours that you need. What makes you more like Christ? I think it would. All right, where are we here? All right, so I'm not going to say a whole bunch of the things that I wanted to say because I wanted to talk about relationship with the greater body in our city and stuff like that, which is hard for me not to do. So a couple of things. Lord help me. You know, we're Joel came through a couple of weeks ago. He's feeling stirred to his here now. Like his, his felt stirred and he said yes, right? So he's here and he's feeling to build here and to plant here. Joel is like excited about what the Lord's going to do here in Adelaide. It's really cool because that excites me again. And so there's, but we're building relationship with Joel. And so you're going to see him again. You know, we can go there. He can come here. We're going to see him where we're together as churches and all of those things. We're building relationship. Other guys in this city, you know, Darren's in this city, Darren and Josh, Josh from from lighthouse up in Balaklava. He'll be here in a couple of weeks. Darren will be here the week after. The reason that we're doing this is we want you guys to know these guys in our city. It's important that we know the guys that are working the same wall as us in this city. It's relational. We need to know who God's placed strategically around this city. And so I say that so that we prioritize these times. So Josh is here on the, I think it's the, is it the, Darren's here on the 29th, I think, 29th for Darren, 22nd for Josh. So make a note of that. Please come, please come and be here. Make a priority to be here because again, we're building relationship. We're believing that through relationship, we can be in tune with what God's doing here in this city. Is that okay? Wonderful. Now, let me just move on. I'm going to, I'm going to focus now for the next 10 minutes or so just around just our healthy relationships in this room because I think this is important for us. Healthy relationships allow us to build something greater. If you think about how things grow, unhealthy things break under the pressure of growth. If it's unhealthy to begin with, it won't sustain growth. Okay, we see that in healthy, in a healthy marriage, a healthy marriage can sustain growth through raising a family, through children, because it's healthy and it's strong in the relationship between husband and wife is good. And the children come along and they're able to have a very healthy family because relationship is good. Okay. When relationship is bad, what do we see all over the world? What do we see all over out here when there's unhealthy marriages? Separation, divorce, breakdown, suffering, crime, kids that are raised just, you know, lawlessness. They don't know him that are broken, depressed, hurt, suffering. Right. It's important to have strong relationships in a marriage and so you could say the same thing when building a business. You see that businesses grow too fast and they expand too quickly and the foundation's not solid and the whole thing just implodes and falls apart. And so our relationships here need to be solid and strong so that as we grow, as there's fruit here, as God adds to us, that they are added into a healthy family. If we are an unhealthy family, as people come in and are added in, they will hurt people, we'll hurt people. They will end up more broken than they were before because a broken house isn't going to be able to raise up people to freedom and to health and to strengthen to life. This is why this is really important. And that actually matters for all of us sitting in this room because you play a part in this family. The way that you relate to every single person in the life of this church actually matters a lot. Okay. Maybe just look around this room guys. Have a look around the room of the people here. Turn your heads. It's okay. Right. These are the people. Right. These are the people that God has placed in your family here. God's niche you into a family here. Right. And he wants, I don't even know, like do you guys know each other? Is there, you don't have to answer this. Is there people in this room that you've never even spoken to? We are such a small church. We are so small. I want to challenge you. If there's someone in this room that you haven't spoken to before, I challenge you today. Go and say hello. Please. We are small enough. It's family. Our family, if we sat down at the dinner table at my house and sat down for dinner and Hillary and Lever and Hillary at Hillary. Hillary, Lever and myself were just having this wonderful conversation and Lever and Liam was just sitting there and even she's not really talking yet. So she doesn't count for this. But Liam was just sitting there and no one was talking to him. And when he tried to speak, he was just spoken over the top of and he never could get a word in. How would he feel? That is a broken family there. We're going to be mindful of the people that are in the room with us. We're going to make sure we protect one another. We got to look for the people that are lonely. We're going to look for the people that can't get a word in their trace. And if I'm in a conversation and Daniel and I are going to pick on Daniel, if Daniel and I are standing here and Aaron's there too, and me and Daniel are going back and forwards and let's say Daniel and I are talking and Aaron walks up and he stands next to us and we just continue our conversation. We don't even acknowledge him. And then he just goes, okay, and then he walks off. And we just continue because we're having a serious conversation. Do you think this doesn't happen? Guys, I've seen it. I've seen it here. These things happen. We're going to open up our hearts to one another and be inclusive. If you're in a group and there's someone standing there, do you know what I do? And this is training guys. Do you know what I do if someone's standing here and they just back a bit and they're and they're we're all quite close. Do you know what I do? Turn a little spotty language. It's embracing brothers and sisters into the conversation. I welcome people in. If I see someone coming and so it takes practice, right? Because if we are having a serious conversation, sometimes what I will do is I'll just go, Aaron, just give us a minute, bro. I can, you know, just give us five minutes. Because sometimes you are talking about things. Better to say just give us a minute than just ignoring someone. I don't need to look. Anyway, that's a whole another thing. Relationship guys. We've got to love each other. We've got to take the steps to make sure that we're not left out and feeling like we're just don't matter. People struggle with their worth in a church, in this room. I know people struggle with feeling like they're valuable. Do you know how we counter that? Make them know that they're not invaluable. Make them know their worth. Spend the time. Send a message. All of these things is just like loving people from the heart. It's a spirit of God, guys. I'm going to try and just bring this to a close. I didn't say anything like I was going to say this morning. Nothing. I think we need to respond to these things. Because I know I'm pastoring this church. I know some stuff, but even just through the spirit of God, I know that there's stuff in our hearts that needs to be dealt with. I know that there's issues in some of our relationships here. I know that there's people that struggle to make friends because they're unwilling to be vulnerable. They like people thinking that they've got it all together. But if they had to actually share where they're really at, people would think less of them. Right? But, and that's just, they could be pride. That's a stronghold, guys. That will keep you from being in tune with the Spirit of God and being who God's called you to be. That will stop you from knitting in to the body. If you think that you're better than people, and again, I'm not talking to anyone, people think they're better than people. It's ramping out there, but it's in the church as well. People think, people see it through natural eyes. It's just the flesh. People think that because of the place that I live, or the job that I have, or the family that I've grown up in, like I'm superior in some way. And that I wouldn't, like, those people over there, well, you know, I couldn't really, really relate to that person. So you don't give them any time. Because you think, like, and you might not even think it in here, but in here, you think you're better than them. Can I tell you, you're not. None of us are better than anyone else. The only thing that we have going for us is that Jesus Christ died on the cross so that we could know Him and that His Spirit could live inside you and I. The Spirit of God is the best thing about you, isn't it? Everything else could be changed to be more like Him. Because the Spirit of God is God. So everything about the Spirit of God that is in you is better than anything else. That's not of the Spirit of God. And we're being conformed to the image of God. So you've got to ask yourself some questions. You've got to go, "Am I saying no to catching up with that person just because of worldly things, or fleshly things?" Or am I saying no because I don't believe that it's God's will? It's always God's will. We're a family. Think about that picture that I gave us of the table. You guys are sitting at the same table. We can't ignore each other. So the answer, when someone says to you, when someone in this church says, "Hey, I'd love to catch up with you." You know what you say? You say, "Yes." Now I'm not commanding that you say, "Yes." But I'm saying that Jesus came so that we could know Him first and then have solid relationship with the brothers and the sisters that God's put around you. So He wants us to be connected in a very tight way. So again, I'm just saying, "Assess your reasons for saying no." And if it's God, great. If it's not, put that thing aside and say, "Yes." Is that okay? I'm going to bring this to a close, because I think that there's enough in here. There's enough in here that God needs to work on, even just out of the things that I've said, that it's going to strengthen us to be the church that God's called us to be. Now there's a scripture here that I felt to read this morning. I'm going to end with this. If I put it in my notes, I may not have. Let me just find it. It was 2nd Corinthians. I think it's 2nd Corinthians 10. Just bear with me for a moment, guys. So 2nd Corinthians 10 verse 3. Oh, Lord, help us catch what you're saying here. It says that for we walk in, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war against the flesh. For our weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds. Casting down arguments, and every higher thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Now there's a couple of things in here. First of all, first three says, for though we, we, not I, for though I walk in the flesh. No, for though we walk in the flesh, we walk in the flesh. We, we do not war according to the flesh. Next verse, please. So in our togetherness, right? Because this is talking about breaking strongholds. This is talking about fighting against the enemy. But it's a we, it's not a you, it's a we. For our, for the weapons of our warfare, our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. That means something to me. That spoke to me in a real way this morning. Because that means that I believe there's strongholds in here that are cutting us off from one another, cutting us off from fellowship, cutting us off from real, deep, meaningful relationship, cutting us off from being vulnerable and, and being open and honest with some key people about what you've been through and about where you truly are at. Strongholds, if you're unwilling to share these things with anyone to save face or because it hurts too much or whatever, you're going to stay bound. You're going to stay in this stronghold. The enemy is going to keep you bound there, not free. So this is teaching us how to be free of the strongholds in our heart and it's a we, it's our our, right? And so we, we, and like we need to stir these relationships. We need to be accountable to one another. We need to have some key people in our lives that you would be ruthlessly honest about who you are and what you're going through and what you've been through. And, and the spirit of God through that relationship will bring healing, will bring peace, will bring freedom, will bring life. The spirit of God will break the strongholds through relationship with him, with each other. You know, we're told to confess our sins to one another, right? It's the we. Is this hitting here? Is this like, you guys feeling this? Is there work to be done? Right? Is there work to be done in here? Never stops, but we can say no. Because, and we do. Because he wants to keep working. And we can just pull back and say not today, Lord. I don't want it. It's too hard. I don't, we've got a surrender or you got it, Libby. And I think there's a, I think there's a moment, even now, you know, because where we started off, we're talking, you don't have to wait till you get home. You don't have to wait to fall on your knees and get in the presence of God. He's here. He lives inside you. We can, we can give ourselves over to him wholeheartedly here and say, Lord, that little splinter in my heart or that great oppression, Lord, that's keeping me down. I take it to you, Lord. I take it to my brothers and maybe let's just, can we stand together? Please, I'm just going to pray. We're going to trust that God's going to do some heart surgery in this moment. Oh, Lord, Jesus, we need you in this moment. Holy Spirit, we need you. It's not just words, it's not just ideas. It's the Spirit of God. And so, Lord, we, we as a people in this church today, open ourselves up to you. In this moment, in a real relationship and a tangible way to the Holy Spirit right now, first to you. And, Lord, we pray that you would give us the boldness and the courage and the strength to open up to one another. We pray, Lord, that you would give us eyes that are like fire for one another, that we would burn with compassion and love for one another, that we would have eyes to see those on the outer and we would run to bring them into the center. We pray, Lord, that you would build a church here that is healthy and strong, that you could add to in powerful ways that broken people could come and be set free, healed and delivered, that the gospel would deal with their stuff, that it would be broken off them. And so, Lord, I pray even for this moment right now, I pray that shackles would fall in the name of Jesus. I pray that bondage would fall, would be broken in the name of Jesus. Jesus. I pray that oppression would fall away. I pray, Lord, that hurts and bitterness and frustrations would be broken in the name of Jesus. I pray for an openness and a willingness to serve you with all our heart. And I pray, Lord, that you would be glorified in great ways in the coming moments, days, weeks and months in just a deep, rich relationship, a table. I just pray that you, even just that picture I spoke of at the table, I pray you'd show us a picture even right now of us around the table, and that everyone would have a voice, that every smiles on all of our faces, full of life, full of joy, full of peace, knowing that you gave us a seat at the table. And that we're all welcome. Jesus know you. Amen. 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.