Gareth Forsdike - Shake Off The Dust

Welcome to the nation's church podcast. We hope this message blesses you. We're going to get into the Word of God today and it's just beautiful touch of God in worship already and I just want to echo what Pastor Deb said. I just really believe that the Lord, he always, he's always at work. He's always moving. He always wants to do something new and it's the reaction of the people whether we're leaning, whether we'd open our hearts to receive what the Lord has to say. I'm not bringing anything new. I'm just renewing a truth that's already been around for thousands of years. God doesn't always do like something brand spanking you new. Often he reveals and renews a truth that's always been there. And today he wants to renew truths that have always been there to real wake in you, to bring you alive again and to help you on this journey. And so maybe you stumbled into church, maybe you're wiping the sleep out of your eyes. Maybe you're on a faith journey and you're like this is all brand new to me. Maybe you've been in church a million times and you're like God just another service. I want to encourage you wherever you are on the faith journey. God wants to meet you and wherever you are on the faith journey today. If you could do me a favor and just commit to taking the next step. If you don't know him as Lord and Savior, yeah, I want to encourage you to consider taking the next step. If you've been at church for all your life, I want to encourage you to consider taking the next step in your maturity and in your growth in Christ. Amen. I want to speak to you a message today called Shake Off the Dust. Shake off the dust. Turn to the neighbor behind you who you haven't spoken to since you walked in and say Shake off the dust. Shake off the dust. We're going to have a great time at myriad, 830 service. We're going to get straight into it. Genesis 22. How many of you will be here a couple of weeks ago when I've seen your past pastor Ken Lee spoke a brilliant message to set us up for 2026. Show our hands just so I know so I can know what I'm recapping. He spoke a brilliant message on the story of Abraham and Isaac and how we are called as believers to not just live lives of sacrifice but actually to live lives of surrender. The book of Hebrews said that Jesus was the once and for all our great high priest and he paid a cost. He sacrificed it all so that now you and I get to not just live lives of sacrifice but actually live lives of surrender to Jesus. We step into 2026. We're stepping into a life that surrenders control, comfort and certainty and we want to posture ourselves to live a life of surrender without being searched. I want to honor our senior pastor, Kenneth Chrissy Lee, who are brilliant leaders and also campus executive here at Myriad, pastor Shannon, Hopper and tomorrow, pastor Shannon's on some long service leave that started already. The PK is probably watching a delicious basketball game over in America if you've seen his insta stories that I'm not jealous about at all but I've laid that at the altar before I got up here. But we're going to get into the word of God and I want to take you back to Genesis 22 to kind of springboard from PK's message what I feel the Lord wants to say to today and we'll follow that along and see what the Lord wants to do. Genesis 22, 15 to 19. The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said I swear by myself to clear the Lord. But because you have done this and not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous of the stars in the sky, the sun on the sea shore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities and their enemies and through your offspring all nations and earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me. When Abraham returned to his servants they set off together but be a sheba and Abraham stayed there in the sheba. Father we thank you for your word. Holy Spirit I'm asking you would you come? Would you move? Would you minister? Father we prepare our hearts right now. Your word is sovereign, it is holy. Help us to treat us such. Holy Spirit thank you that you're speaking. Let everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear here with the Spirit of the Lord is doing in this hour. Thank you for your anointing it's in the room to heal, to bind, to broken heart, to set the captives free, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. We want to get out the way and we want you to have your way. In Jesus' name we pray. And God's people said, Amen, Amen. Thank you so much. Can we thank our worship and production team? They've done a brilliant job all morning. We're going to get back into some worship a little bit later on. I'm speaking to you a message this morning called Shake off the dust and that title will make sense as we go on. But we think about the story of Abraham and Isaac. They have just been up the mountain. As P.K. said our God is not a God interested in child sacrifices that would be an incorrect exegesis of the story. God was testing Abraham to see whether he would surrender the very one thing that God promised him that he desired all his life. And so he obeys God. He surrenders his son and God then rewards with a ram in the thicket. Not just that, he rewards with a blessing over him and his family and he sends Abraham on his way. When you live a surrendered life, it doesn't just stop there. There is an activation that happens for you to then have to continue living on a surrendered life. Abraham could have stayed on the mountain. God could have said, Hey, that was good. That was great. You passed the test. Now camp out here. But God sends him on his way. So Abraham goes on his way and we know the story of Abraham and Isaac that is he heads on his way. He lives a surrendered life with Isaac on the mountain top. But as he continues to walk out, later on in the book of Genesis, he actually goes to find his son Isaac a wife and in fighting him a wife, he says to his servant, Hey, don't pick him a wife from from a canonite land because I remember the promise God had given to me on the mountain that my descendants, my inhabitants will actually take over, will actually possess the promised land. So I'm holding onto a promise from when Isaac was a lot younger. Now when his older, finding him a wife, I'm still remembering the promise he gave. And it got me thinking about my own life as I was kind of in the text, how I would love my children, I've got three young children, Alia, Micah and Nariah. And I would love them to say in their older age, not just that their dad lived a once-off surrendered life at a conference. Or I lived a once-off surrendered life at the start of every year. I would love them to say of their dad, man, my dad lived a long, surrendered life. And it got me thinking about living a long, surrendered life. Who wants to live a long, surrendered life? Not just like a moment, but a long, surrendered life. And we read the story. We read that he just comes down and we're like, oh, what is his business as usual. But when you're in the Bible, people have real emotions, real thoughts, real testimony. And I think about the stuff that Abraham could have come down the mountain with. He could have come down with a little bit of resentment. Oh, God, you're always asking me to do hard things. See that? Another hard thing. I thought this was meant to be easy. I thought I said yes to you. He could have come back with resentment. He could have come back with a little bit of anger at Isaac. I know you were the promise, but this happened because of you. I was pulling my hair out because of you. I almost had to sacrifice because of you. You could have come down with some frustration, some low-key disappointment in his wife's Sarah. She didn't even do anything wrong. Come back. You should have been praying. God should have spoken to you. You should have given me foresight. But what was going to happen? You're my wife. You're meant to be the covering and like, what's going on? You could have walked off, but the Bible says none of those things. He didn't walk down with resentment attached to him. He didn't walk down with disappointment attached to him. He didn't walk down with despair attached to him. He walked down in the continuation of the promise of God in his life. We just came back from down south recently and as every WA family does over the Christmas holidays, we went down south and I'm a little bit torn because I'm an ethnic person. I was born in Cape Town, South Africa. I came across when I was five years old. Any South Africans in the room just show our hands real quick. Wow, man, where's South African church? All right. So I came back as born in Cape Town. And so I'm going to be a dilemma because I love, I'm a full-born Australian, right? And I love the beach. My family loves the beach. But my people, they don't really love the beach. Like I was at the beach and I saw someone and I was like, you know, he was a man of color as well. So you know, you kind of give each other a nod like you know each other and so we nod and he walks past and it's family and they're at the beach and they're in like full Sunday clothes. Like shoes because they don't really want to touch the sand. And I'm in that dilemma as well. Like I love the beach but sometimes the sand kind of freaks me out like am I wearing full shoes am I wearing thongs and you get back in the car and you're way back from holiday and with three young kids you don't clean your car before holidays because what comes with you is kilograms of sand back from holidays. Right. You're cleaning your car for like five weeks. There's sand in places that shouldn't be there. And you've left the destination but you still carry the sand. The sand isn't necessarily like seeing it. It's not like it's something you committed. It's just what's attached based on an experience from a season that you've been in. I've been down south but the evidence that I've been down south is that you look in my car. You'll see plenty of sand in my car to show the evidence of where I have been. Now hold that tension and come with me to the book of Luke chapter 10 verse 1 to 12. After these things a lot of pointed 70 others also and set them two by two before his face into every city and place where he himself was. about to go. Then he said to them, "The harvest truly is great. The laborers of few, therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest. Amen. We're in harvest time. Go your way. Behold, I send you out as lambs amongst wolves carrying the money on your back, a backpack, sandals, greet no one along the road. But wherever house you enter, first say, peace to this house. The son of peace is there. Your peace will rest on it if not it will return to you. Remain at the same house, eating, drinking, such things as they give. For the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. But whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat such things as I said before you. Verse 9, "Heal the sick there and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you." I love that. The kingdom of God has come near to you. The kingdom of God is here and now. The kingdom of God is in this room here and now. But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into his streets and say the very dust of your city which clings to us, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, know this. The kingdom of God has come near you. But I say to you that it will be more tolerable on the day for Sodom than for that city. Let's give some context to this verse. This is a mission teaching moment. It's like past the Ken Fletch are getting up on screen saying, "Hey, we got a great mission strip happening and we're about to go and hit this land." And so Jesus is going to send out 70 into this is important Jewish towns. We know this because Matthew 10, 5, 6, do not go into the way of Gentiles and I enter a city of Samaritans but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So when you lead Luke 7, Luke 8, Luke 9, Luke 10, it's a progression. This isn't like a brand new mission. When Jesus opens up the world to Gentiles, he does it in part while he is on earth, yes, because he loves old people. But the fruition of it happens from the day of Pentecost. This is important because they're not going to pagan households. They're not going to people who don't recognize or should not recognize Jesus. They're going to covenant people who should have recognized the Messiah. That's where they're going. To households of covenant people who should have recognized the Messiah. And so Jesus tells them, "Whatever city you enter, no, no, receive you, shake off the very dust off your feet." This is now shocking to a Jewish ear. Why was it so intense? Because to shake dust off from a Jewish town, it meant this. You are behaving like a pagan space and you are not aligned with God's movement. Ouch. Jesus hits them with a really harsh truth. In 1st century, Israel, a Jewish person, before they entered their home city, before they entered their hometown, before they entered Israel, if they had gone through a pagan or a foreign town, before they stepped on what they would believe and say is holy ground, they would shake the dust off their feet and their clothes because they believed that they were in unholy lands and now they want to get into a holy land. And 1st century Israel at the time, they were waiting for a Messiah. They were longing for a deliverance. This is the scene Jesus comes in. They were saturated with prophecy. There was 400 years of silence. There was expectation for what God wants to do. And so the dust wasn't, it wasn't moral failure. It wasn't sin. And I want to be really clear as Christians, we should aggressively deal with our sin because we are a royal priesthood, a chosen nation by God. But the context of this verse where Jesus is speaking in dust was actually spiritual disappointment, resistance and disillusionment, spiritual disappointment, resistance and disillusionment. And when I speak about these dusts today, I want to be clear on two things. Number one, this is not a works based thing. You can't clean yourself. You can only present yourself to the one who does the cleaning. Number one, that's really important. This is in the legalism works based thing. Number two, dust affects us all even if we live surrendered lives. It is what sticks to our soul from bad seasons but also from good seasons. Jesus was speaking to believers. He wasn't speaking to people who don't believe in him. He didn't say, hey, stop loving people. Stop caring for people. He just said, get rid of dust off the things in your life that don't belong to me. Jesus was saying, don't let rejection, don't let unbelief or resistance define your next assignment. Don't let rejection, unbelief or resistance define your next assignment. Hands up of 225 has been a good year for you. Hands up. Come on, this is a great question. Hands up of 225 has been a challenging year for you. Hands up. You could put your hand up a boat. Here's the thing. Dust happens to our soul. It doesn't discriminate. And if it's been a good year and you've been missional living, then probably you've experienced resistance because you're coming against the Kingdom of Darkness. And the question is, as you step into 2026, would you shake off the dust of resistance that can often lead to bitterness and a heart and a heart against people? It was a good season, but there still can be dust of bad things from good seasons. Or maybe 2026 was a difficult year. Maybe you've allowed a dust of rejection and unbelief to stick. And I want to lovingly encourage you today, Nations Church, Myri, online to shake off the dust so you can step into greater in 2026 to give it to the Lord. So real quick, let me summarize before we move on. Dust represents what clings to you. You didn't choose it, but it still sticks. And spiritually, disappointment clings. Rejection clings. Grief clings. Shame clings. Spiritual resistance clings. If you don't believe me, there's a lot smarter people that called early church fathers. I had this to say. Origin of the third century said this. Dust symbolized the emotional and spiritual residue of a place that resists the truth. Augustine says we do not shake off you know obedience. And what we do not shake off an obedience, we carry into our prayers. Christodum said this. Disciples were not told to curse the town, but to cleanse themselves. That was what I'd said this, refusing to let the failures of ministry poison the soul. Put yourself in the text. Because sometimes we read the story and we kind of remove ourselves a little bit. That sounds good. And then I'm like, if you're part of these people that have been sent out, if you're part of the 70s sent out, you go to the first house. People have been waiting for a massage. You knock on their door. Hey, you enter their house. Let me tell you, he is here. The massage is here. The one you've heard about is here. The one who transforms life is here. You would think you'd get a great response. A great lean in a great man. I can't believe it. Where do I sign up? Where do I say yes? My people have been waiting 400 years of silence. Let's go. And then, but instead, I don't know. I don't think that's the one. If you could, we should just leave my house. First person, you're like, oh, it's shocked. The time you get to the 5, 6, 7, 10, 20th household, you can imagine you might be a little bit despondent. But the time you get to the next house, you might dial down your zeal. The time you get to the next house, you might dial down your passion. This might be the same thing that I had last time. The time you get to the next household. Well, this is just another household. Jesus knew this and in His wisdom when He prepares them, He says, listen, when you go somewhere and you aren't met with that right response, that's okay. Don't let it stick to you. Jesus, in other words, let me be God. You're not God. I'll change people's hearts. It's not on you to change their hearts. But when you go and they don't accept, when you go on their disappointment, when you go and you feel like there's disillusionment, when you go to these places, don't let it attach itself to your soul. Dust it off, get rid of it and keep moving on. Stay on mission, stay walking, stay going in the things of God. Nations Church can I encourage you to stay on mission, stay on purpose, stay on plan, whether it's been a good season or a bad season. Get rid of the dust. Shake off the dust. Don't let it define your next assignment. The Bible repeatedly connects, unprocessed pain, disappointment and sin with a hardest of heart. Always, you read the whole Bible. In the Old Testament, God's speaking through His prophets, Zachariah, right? And we jump in on this text, Zachariah 7, 11 to 12. But they refuse. God's prophet, God's speaking to His people. But they refuse to pay attention. Stubbornly, my people turn their backs and cover their ears. They may their hearts, their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law. Or the words of the Lord God Almighty had sent by Spirit through earlier prophets. So the Lord was actually very angry. 518 BC is the time this is written. And Israel's returned from 70 years of Babylonian exile. The temple has been rebuilt. Worship is being restarted. And the people are living and they're wondering, they're saying to God and they're saying the prophets are like, "All right, can we finally start living a normal life? Can we finally get back to the way things have been?" Yes, we've been in bondage. And God speaks through His prophet and says, "Tell I tell my people this, that they can't just go back to the way things have been, because they've been in a culture that isn't of me. They've been in a place. They've been in bondage that isn't of me. Listen, we walk through a fallen world. We walk, you and I walk through a broken world. This isn't a random story in the text. This is the application to you and I in this room, Nations, Mary, 830 service. And he says, you walk through, God says to these people, you walk through a fallen world and your heart has become like flint. If you want to wear flint, it's stone covered by layers of sediment. It's literally dust that has been compacted and compressed and pressurized over time. Dust has been compacted, compressed, pressurized over time. And the application here is a beautiful application from the warning from God from Proverbs 28 14. He's always reverent, but he hardens his heart, will fall into calamity. And it's not like God's like to mean distant God. He cares for his people. He wants you to live your best life. He wants you to walk in mission with him. He wants you to live a long, surrendered, faithful life. And so he gives warnings throughout. Scripture's like, hey, as you walk through life, things will become attached, disillusionment, disappointment, pain, trauma. These things will happen because we live in a broken, fallen world. And repeatedly from Genesis to Revelation, God speaks to His children, hey, lovingly, hey, come on, shake off the dust, shake off the dust, shake off the dust. Hey, I need to last you. Do it again. Hey, I know you've been gone through that work thing. Do it again. I know you've been in that famstration. Do it again. It's not a rebuk, it's a loving encouragement from my father to his children. Oh, God, Gaz, but I've been faithful. Because people who are faithful still walk through hard seasons. Faithfulness still walks through rejection. Faithfulness still walks through disappointment. Faithfulness still walks through resistance. Faithfulness still walks through grief. Dust still sticks to faithful people. And so you might be like, guys, I get it. There's some things that are maybe even attached. Maybe you're sitting in your remembering. Maybe there's some things. That have been attached. Maybe there's some things you're looking at even seeing you see right now. So I could relate to disappointment, some disillusionments, some unmet expectations. Whatever it is, from 2025 saying, guys, I can see that. Holy Spirit, would you do a work in me right now? But I need to know how? How do I shake up disappointment? How do I shake off the pain of unmet expectation? How do we shake off the grief of a bad season? How do we shake off rejection? Unbelieve resistance? How do we do it? How do we shake off the dust? Jesus gives us the answer in the text with prayer and with praise. We shake off dust with prayer and praise. You don't have to look far. Jesus gives the answer in the text. Luke 10, 17. Then the 70 return with joy. They come back and they got joy. Well, what does it mean? If you study the text, literally the implication in the Greek here is they return praising Jesus. They return praising God. Even the demons are subject to us in your name. They didn't return angry. They didn't return traumatized. They didn't return annoyed. They returned praising God. And off the back of that, Jesus says, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. And Jesus then says, on the back of that, praise. I saw Satan fall. Then he turns to his father and says, in that hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, I thank you, Father. What is Jesus doing? His conveying is having a conversation with his heavenly Father right there in the text. To shake off the dust, the evidence that they have done it is literally prayer and praise. Prayer and praise. Nations Church, I want to encourage you as you head into 2026, be a person of praise. And praise him on the mountain tops, praise him on the valley. I was so excited. There's a verse that says, I was glad. I was filled with joy when they said, let us come to the house of the Lord. It's not like a fake thing. I literally am excited to come to the house of the Lord. There is no other expression like this. I can praise God in my living room absolutely. But there's something corporately when believers come together and they lift up their hands. There's people lifting up their hands and they've got cancer diagnosis. People lifting up their hands and they've gone through a painful divorce. People lifting up their hands and their kids aren't back with Jesus yet. People, what is it around the whole room? People can lift up their hands because they're praising him. There's something about praising him, giving him my all, giving him my love, the whole the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. There's something about living a life of praise. I'm 150, let everything that has breath, praise the Lord. Praise him. Not let something, let everything, Psalm 223, but you are holy. You are enthroned in the praises of Israel. Banda, you guys can join me. And I found in my life the dust often hardens in silence but dissolves in praise. I found it in my own personal life. It's still there but he's thinking he hardens in silence but it dissolves in praise. Look throughout the whole Bible. Paul and Saul have been there. What do they do in the book of Acts? Have a prayer party? Have a prayer meeting and a praise party? Things start to change. What was the Jericho as they come down? God's people marching around the world. What were they doing? They were preparing themselves in prayer and in praise. From Genesis to Revelation. Wherever God asks His people to sanctify themselves, whenever you get to a study on them, whenever He asks them to change their lives, He always brings them back to two things. Prayer and praise. Always, always. And in 2026, as we step into this as a people, as we endeavor to live long lives of surrender, I believe if you are heart in this place as Lord, would you help me to shake off the things? Would there be a healing atmosphere in this room for me to shake off disappointment and to spare and disillusionment? I believe the answer isn't found in how clever I am or how great your name is. The answer is found in Him and we get that answer in prayer and in praise. Bill Johnson says this praise is a sound of a heart that has discovered it's God is bigger than it's problems. I love that. Jack Haif had said this worship changes the worshiping to the image of the one worshiping. We are not in a cycle of works based legalism. You can't shake off the dust yourself of rejection, disappointment, resistance, grief by doing any more good works. You only do it via Him through prayer and through praise. Luke 10, Jesus' Son, Convees to this Father in prayer. After He's been signs and wanders, He says Father, thank you. What is that? What is conveying with your Heavenly Father? It's a conversation. It's prayer. I want to shake off the dust heading into 2026 from a 2025 that's been good or bad. I want to encourage you. Be a person of prayer. Prayer is conveying with God. Prayer is a lifeblood of every single believer. If you show me a prayerless Christian, I'll show you an unfulfilled Christian. If you show me a prayer, honestly, I believe that because I've been on the journey. If you are a prayerless Christian, there is an unfulfillment in your heart. It changes things. It shifts atmosphere. Here's what it does. It gives us an awareness of our Father. That's why Jesus teaches. He says, come to my Father, this is our Father. Holy is your name. Be aware of Him and then ask of Him. It's a conversation where He makes you aware. When we head back from a dinner or a function or whatever, we'll be on the drive back. I love the covenant of marriage because the covenant of marriage is a mirror. There are things that you don't see that your partner sees and you think you're a really good at and your partner is odd. Let me just take you down a couple. We'll go off in an event and we'll come back and we're in the car ride and I'll be talking to this happen. Hacker was there. Hacker was there. She'd be like, yeah, awesome, awesome, awesome. Then I'll be the slight little lull on my own. I know something's coming. Sounds come. Just say, hey, you know what you said that. It sounded like a bit of a jerk. It's like how dare you. And she's like, no, it just didn't sound quite right. You're a little bit like, honestly, guys, you probably, it sounded a little bit condescending the way you were talking then. I didn't see it. But this is why prayer is so important without Heavenly Father because when you have a prayer light with your Heavenly Father, He makes you aware of things in your life that you wouldn't ordinarily see yourself. Why don't we shake off the dust of life regularly? Well, sometimes we aren't aware it's even there. And we're not aware it's there until we're actually shown it by our loving Heavenly Father. The story of Luke chapter 10 isn't about a people who didn't know about Jesus, the Jewish people. They knew about him aside to come. They knew about a promise to come. They were just unaware of what was attached to them. But sometimes in our lives, bitterness feels like wisdom. Sometimes in our life, cynicism feels like. feels like discernment. Come on. Sometimes in our lives isolation feels like solitude. I just got to be by myself. No, no, no, yes, have solitude with God, but it's not designed to cut you off from the body. In terms of not aware until we come into the presence of the Lord, Father, here I am. Would you wash me? Would you change my heart? I love this prayer, the simple prayer I do most mornings. Just like God, here I am. Like David said, would you just refine my heart? What is not of you take out? What is of you? Would you remain? And I don't know, because I can't see it all, but you can. Thank you, Father. And it's amazing the times when God will just highlight something. Oh, well, I didn't even know that. Thank you, God. And I'll just give it to Him. It's amazing how that happens. Jeremiah 222, God is speaking to His people after years of spiritual drift. Though you wash yourself with lie, let yet your iniquity is marked before me. God's own children. They're not pagan. They're still religious. They're still doing stuff. They're still worshiping. They're still at their temple, but they had picked up spiritual dust. And when they finally come to God, God says, Oh, I'm so glad you've come to me. Because now let me tell you that you think, you think you've got it all together. You think you're clean, but there's still something clinging. Spiritual dust often hides from self-awareness. That's why we have to come to the Lord. Lord show us. Lord teach us. Lord guide us. Pray isn't just getting from God. It's also coming. God, would you change me? Would you change my life? Here I am. I don't have all the answers. I don't have all the stuff, but I know that I need to be changed by you. C.S. Lewis said, I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I am helpless. Augustine said prayers. The lifting of the mind to God. Good Johnson said prayer doesn't change God. It changes us. Love what it says in one desolonians. In everything God, what's your will for 2026 for my life? Here it is. In everything, give praise consistently. Pray continuously. For this is the will of God for your life. Sometimes we confuse things so much. But because in the name of the will for your best life in 2026, the will for your life to get rid of the dust on your life, the will for what you need to step into, whether it's in your marketplace, whether it's in your family, whether it's in your high school, the will for your life is to step into continuous prayer. It's to step into continuous praise. That is the will of God for our life. So I want to encourage you, the nation's myriad, 830 AM service. Let's shake off the dust going into 2026. Let's do so, not by a word-based thing. I can do it myself. No, no, let's come in prayer. Let's come with praise because the Lord wants to do something in our lives. Whether it's a good season or a bad season, we're all the same. Most of us like the rest of us. Can't flex your way since. But let's step into 2026 together with renewed hope, with renewed vision, with fresh expectation for what the Lord wants to do in our lives. Amen.