Scripture reference: Matthew 6:25-33 (TPT); Matthew 6:33 (KJV); 2 Corinthians 9:10 (KJV); 2 Corinthians 9:6-11 (NLT); 2 Corinthians 9:10 (AMPC); Isaiah 55:6-12 (NKJV)
Wonderful, wonderful. It’s good to hear you all sing. Praise the Lord, just because we can not because there’s music. Hallelujah. Well, before you sit down I want you just to say hello to somebody and tell them, “I’m glad you’re in church this morning.” Then tell someone else. Thank you. You’ve got a Bible on you? That’s fine. Glory to God. Matthew 6 verse 25, The Passion Translation says, 25 This is why I tell you to never be worried about your life, for all that you need will be provided, such as food, water, clothing—everything your body needs. Isn’t there more to your life than a meal? Isn’t your body more than clothing? Verse 28, 28 And why would you worry about your clothing? Look at all the beautiful flowers of the field. They don’t work or toil, 29 and yet not even Solomon in all his splendor was robed in beauty like one of these! Verse 31, 31 So then, forsake your worries! Why would you say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For that is what the unbelievers chase after. Doesn’t your heavenly Father already know the things your bodies require? So, verse 33, 33 above all, constantly seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness, then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly. 34 Refuse to worry about tomorrow, Refuse to worry about tomorrow but deal with each challenge that comes your way, one day at a time. Tomorrow will take care of itself (Matthew 6:25-33 TPT).
Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. I’m going to talk about the word righteousness in a minute. So, I’d just wanted to read that passage of scripture to you. It’s what we have been speaking about, it’s what we have been ministering on. So, but I just need to tell you that I’ve got no worries. I’ve got no worries. I’ve got no worries. Hallelujah. Just so that you’re all in the clear now and you know why we have no sound up here today and why we have this, is that we think it happened last night. Not sure, but some thieves broke into that window at the back and they walked straight to the auditorium, to the thing at the back, and they stole our cameras, they stole lenses, they stole our sound desks. The sound desk that was at the back there, they wiped out our technology.
So, no live streaming today, no sound system today. It’s a quick piece together thing and I say thank you to my team, who did it so well, so quickly. Since we only found out this morning when they came to unlock the church. I would like to, I know that you would like me to take as much time to explain to you the facts and the details. The Police have come here, we’ve opened a docket, a statement, and so we’re just following the procedure of things. I don’t wanna focus on what they did. The Bible says in John chapter 10 that the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came to give us life and life more abundantly.
In this case, I can honestly declare to you that He’s going to turn this whole thing to our certain good because we love Him and we are called according to His purpose. Hallelujah. So, I’m not worried. I am not worried. In fact, I want you to know that in my spirit I am actually vibrating with absolute certainty of purpose. And over the last three months, the Lord has had us speak about Crossing over. Crossing over Kingdom economics, Ecclesia economics and you know, God has been bringing some correction to us as a Church. Right? We have been doing this same routine, this same process for at least five years. I think our Black Magic cameras that we had are maybe six, seven years old.
With all the cameras, we’ve been doing this routine for a long time. Never ever a problem. We start speaking about Ecclesia, giving up our holidays and making them holy days and going off to Kingdom economics and Ecclesia economics. And in the middle of this teaching, hey, this sounds like persecution to me. You know if you break it down and you say, Öh, but maybe these guys, they just came because they are poor or they are thieves and they need to make money. At this season? In the middle of this teaching? Come on. I’m going to minister the Word to you, but I wanna just share with you that we recognize what’s happening spiritually.
On Friday, Pastor Sharon went to, she came and did some stuff here at the church and she went to Ben Fleur shopping mall and she had to do a few things there, buy some stuff. It’s her habit occasionally to go and draw some cash money, just a little bit so that she’s got money that she likes to distribute. She likes to have money in her wallet that she can distribute to the poor, wherever she finds the poor, she wants to distribute money.
So she phones me always and lets me know because, you know, anytime you draw money, you got money in your pocket, right? So she got there and she found a really strange situation unfold in front of her. There were two guys there with an old white man and they were like very hyper and agitated and next minute someone came up to her, a parking attendant came and said, “You must come and park your car correctly, your car’s not parked correctly. Now she knows that she parked her car correctly. Come and park and she turned to him and said, “No, but I did park my car correctly.” He said, “Ma’am. And he kind of almost insisted that she must come and move her car away.”
It turns out that the security, the center security had already been alerted and called other security to come and help. Those two men were armed men and they were busy robbing the white man, forcing him to put his pin number, of his card, into the machine to take his money. Along comes Pastor Sharon, prevents them from following through to steal his money. Her life is at stake. Watch this.
They know our family because we’re always giving, smiles, good words; we’re always blessing all of those people. They realized she’s walking into a potential danger. They went into that situation to pull her out so that she wasn’t in danger. They were armed. Those guys were armed with guns. I mean, they were ready. If anybody came out, they would shoot their way out of there. That happened on Friday. This weekend break in here, I wonder if we’re actually telling the truth in this Church. I wonder, because you know, the devil doesn’t mind people going to church where the truth is watered down. The devil doesn’t want the truth to come out the way it should come out, proper truth. I rejoice.
I want to remind you one more thing. I spoke to Sharon about it this morning when the call came through. When Garth was seventeen, sixteen, seventeen? Somewhere around about there. Many of you have heard the story before, but it’s worth reminding us now. She took him to a piano lesson. She was sitting out in the car reading her Bible, and she had the door open. It was a summer’s day. She had a window open, and the next minute these three guys arrived, armed guys held a gun at her while she’s reading the Bible.
Another guy got into the car on the other side, and another one went and stood at the gate. So they proceeded to take all the cards she had on her, the money she had on her, took all her jewelry off, and all of that kind of stuff. Then Garth came out, when he had finished his music lesson, and the third guy took a gun and put it to Garth’s head to make sure no shouting, no screaming, no alarms, or anything else like that. Well, they just ended up getting what they wanted, got in the car, and left. When do you find anything like that happening? Normally those kind of things go wrong, right? She made a phone call to me to tell me what had happened. We put a hold on the cards. We lost no money. We lost nothing, except her jewelry, her ring, her wedding ring. So, I knew what happened, but I wanted her to speak it out to me this morning. I said, “Sharon, what was the first thing that you did when that happened?” She said, “I praised Jesus. I praise Jesus, and I praise Jesus because I’m grateful, and I’m thankful that nothing worse happened to me, and that the angels were protecting me.” What is a credit card? What is a jewelry? What is that? God was all over protecting Pastor Sharon. Sharon took her empty finger, and she held it up before the devil, and she said, “You will repay seven times what you took off my hand.” Three months later, somebody came to Sharon and put in her hand a wedding ring that had seven times better diamond, much more gold in it, and today she still has that ring, so she holds it up, and she often praises the Lord and says, “God is the One who protected me. God is the One who provides for me. God is the One who’s active in my life.”
You understand that both my young son and my wife’s life was at danger in that time. We have to trust angels. We have to trust that God is looking after those. So I know the devil will really try and get in on this and try and use our words to speak something that shouldn’t be spoken, so I’m going to encourage you to not go there with your conversations. Keep your conversations biblical. Let them be based on the Word of God. If you want to ask any questions, rather don’t, because it’s going to make you doubt, so I’m going to preempt something. How come it happened to us that are always declaring this, always pleading the blood of Jesus for safety? How come it happened to us? Well, here’s what happens; the Bible doesn’t say that weapons won’t be formed against you, but they’re not going to prosper, so this weapon is to try and get us to talk against the word of God. It wants us to talk like, “God doesn’t really protect us.” Sorry, too late, I know He does. He’s not going to change my declaration, he’s not going to change what I believe in Him.
The essence of faith is that no matter what happens around you, you still have faith. You see, logic says if something happens around you, you must solve it with a logic pattern, but faith is not about logic. Faith is what you believe in God, so I’m going to tell you something that happened in December. The Lord began to put it on my heart to be on YouTube every day, on our channel, every day, speaking a word. And I know most of you are doing that, right? And if you’re not… Anyway, so I started recording in December because I wanted to be ready for what needed to come out in January. I was in the back there in this recording studio, and I was having a conversation with Matt because there wasn’t anybody at work, and I said, “Matt, we need to put a plan together, and we need to start structuring a savings plan so that we can start buying and refreshing all of our technology.” Because our technology is six years old, going seven years old now, and even though it’s great, more modern technology, 4K technology, all of that kind of stuff, it’s already being bypassed significantly by other technology and the longer we leave it, the more we’re going to get behind, so we need to start investing in newer technology that we can upgrade our capability in the ministry. I had that conversation with him in December.
So they’ve taken our equipment. I think God’s about to turn this to our certain good because I think we’re going to get new equipment, I’ll keep you informed about that. Hallelujah. So, you know, one Sunday morning, two Sunday mornings, we might not have all the fancy gizmos that we normally have. Hey, this is not bad. You know, maybe we become too reliant on technology. After all, the church is about this, isn’t it? This is what the church is all about. It doesn’t matter how good it gets up here or how well it gets broadcast around. This is what church is all about. This is what we’ve always focused on, is relationships. Amen. Praise the Lord.
So are you comfortable that we’ve got this out of the way? Okay. We’ll move along as quickly as we can. I’m so grateful that we phoned the police. They’ve got here. They’ve already come here. We’ve already opened a case. I mean, they got here within an hour and a half. That’s amazing. On a Sunday morning. That’s amazing. Thank You, Lord. Our prayers for our local government are paying off. We don’t pay them off, they’re paying off. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
I recognize that the enemy over the years has tried to frustrate the work of God with Jesus. He’s tried to frustrate the work of God with Paul, the apostles. Everywhere you go where there’s a significant truth that is being preached, the enemy would try and frustrate it, disrupt it, slow it down, get people to question it, so that it doesn’t have the integrity that it should have. But we are not those people. In fact, we see it as a badge of honour if we are persecuted for the Word’s sake.
So isn’t it interesting that while we’re preaching about Ecclesia economics, Kingdom economics, and crossover, crossover, crossover. In the moment where we are really pushing into God, just pushing into God. Let’s not give him any space in our heads, in our faith, in our world. Amen. Hallelujah. So I’m glad that I’ve been ministering on this up till now because then you will recognize that this message this morning is not because of what’s happened. This message this morning is a continuation of what God said I should be preaching, right?
So, I’m just going to keep doing that, because the best way I know how to give the devil and his minions a blood-eye, is to keep preaching the Truth, and not stop doing that. Amen. So if you all know the second Corinthians chapter 9, I’m going to just read to you one verse and then I’m going to come back to it a little bit later, but I’m doing this on purpose.
Matthew 6: 33 says, 33 seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33 KJV).Yes? So in second Corinthians chapter 9 verse 10, I’m just going to read it out of the old King James versions because the Greek is connected to that. 10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness (2 Corinthians 9:10 KJV). Increase the fruits of your righteousness. That word righteousness is, hey, I don’t know how to speak Greek, so I’ll do my best to give you a pronunciation, but it sounds a bit like this dikaiosune, dikaiosune. And so it means of character, justification. In a broad sense the state of him who is as he ought to be. In a broad sense, him who is as he ought to be. Righteousness. The condition acceptable to God. It also means the doctrine concerning the way in which man may attain a state approved of God.
Remember what I preached last week? I’m going to touch it on again. Integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking, feeling and acting. Integrity. Remember what I said last night, last week? Integrity is oneness. So integrity means when you think one way and you speak one way and you behave one way, you are integrated, you are fully integrated as a person. So, if you say that person is a person of integrity, then it means their thinking, their meditation, their words and their actions are integrated. I also said the Hebrew word for God is Echad. And the word for Echad is oneness.
So, oneness and integrity is equal to holiness because holiness is what you think and what you speak and what you live, is the same. So God the Father, what He thinks, what He speaks and how He behaves, He operates in full oneness, full integration. He’s integrated in His thinking and His speaking and His doing. So when the scripture says that He will give us the fruit, increase the fruit of your righteousness, that means He’s going to increase the abundance of what you think, what you speak and how you behave. This is important.
So when the Bible says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Just bear with me for a minute, here’s what He’s saying, “Seek God’s thinking, seek God’s Words, seek God’s ways, then that integration of righteousness becomes yours in the Kingdom.” So, Kingdom, right thinking, right speaking, right acting, all the things that you need in your life will be given to you abundantly when you are integrated with God in thinking, speaking and acting. Hallelujah.
So, if the Bible says, “Be ye holy even as I am holy.” He’s saying, “You can be integrated with Me and you can be integrated as your own person, you can be integrated by thinking, speaking and behaving the way Jesus does, the way the God, the Father does.” How do you do that? You find it in the Bible. You find it in the Bible.
Now, if you’re walking with God and if you’ll just bear with me, I’m going to use some examples for you, some parables for you, some stories for you. Because you remember I said, “Jesus spoke in parables because He needed to speak the truth.” But the parable hid the truth from those who couldn’t understand it and then He went and He explained it to the disciples so that they could understand it, because they were committed to it, they were prepared to pay a price to get the truth. God is not going to give truth to those who won’t pay a price to get it.
If I want to talk about the same concept in business, I would say the power of business and economics is guarded by problem solving, solutions and problems. So if you are, if I take two qualified accountants, qualified accountants, that had the same qualification, same university, they got the same marks, two qualified accountants and I take them and I put them into a business and the one accountant starts looking at the numbers, and what he wants to do is improve the numbers, improve the numbers. “Let’s put a graph for the management team. Let’s do this. Let’s make sure the numbers are more accurate like this…” and he’s an accountant and he is doing what accountants do.
The other accountant, he goes and he talks to the managing director, and he goes and he talks to the operations director and he goes and he talks to a whole bunch of people, and he starts to get a picture of what’s happening in the business and then he comes along and he says, “You know what, there’s a few things we have to fix here. There’s not enough money being spent in upgrading this technology and this plant. There’s too much money being spent in this area. It’s wasteful there and so if we take some of that money and put it there and if we have human resources move from that one to that one, and we put some technology in this space, we can actually have a more efficient and productive business.” Now which one of those do you think is likely to be called into a high level executive meeting to help solve problems? The latter one. Right?
So, if you’re going to step up, into a place where you can see the bigger picture and you can begin to have a desire to solve problems through understanding, because what was he doing? He wasn’t just trying to understand the numbers, he was trying to understand the business. So, when he tried to understand the business, he obviously knows now where to put numbers, or take away numbers. One guy’s just looking at the numbers, the other guy’s looking at the business.
That’s the same with the story of the parable. People hear the parable from Jesus, the sower sows the Word and speaks about that and so the disciples go to Him afterwards and He said, they say to Him, “Why did You talk about a farmer and sowing to those guys?” Well, here’s the thing, sower is the one who sows the Word and it gets into your heart and then the devil comes and steals it out of your heart. What’s He doing? He’s giving them understanding of the whole of the way the world works through seed. But the truth of that was hidden from those that were not really wanting to find out, they were just after the numbers. The disciples were after the meaning of life. Yes?
So, that happens in the church. People that want to come to church and they just want to hear a good message and feel good and they want to say, “You know what, this is a good church to go to.” Well, they’ll get that. But we as a ministry are not after the numbers of the church. What we are after is, we go to the CEO, God the Father, we go to all of the levels of leadership, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and we say, “Hey, we want to know the business. We want to know about how you run your life in business? We want to know what Your biggest business plan is. How can we do business with You and how do You want to do business with us?” Meaning the business of life, the business of the church, the business of all things. Right?
So that’s where we are. We are pressing in for righteousness. We’re seeking Him first and His way of doing things. So we understand He’s thinking. We understand He’s speaking and we understand He’s doing. We understand this. And so I understood years ago, I understood that I can use faith and my walk with God to bring change to my world. And so I exercise my faith on things that some people would think, “Well, why do you want to exercise based on something so silly?” And you know the story. I was used to ride road bikes and of course, we used to go out on the road and one of the things you get on riding on the road is you get punctures. And I just got sick of having punctures all the time. So I started to make a declaration. “I ride my road bike without getting punctures”. And so then I got a puncture and I fixed the puncture and every time I say, “I ride my bike without getting punctures.” And I would just keep speaking it. I ride my bicycle without getting punctures. Maybe I used to get a puncture once every two months or whatever the case. Now it was once every six months or once every year and eventually, I went three years without getting a single puncture.
Now if I had quit my conversation and my declaration because I speak it and then I got a puncture and I speak it and I got a puncture, then I give up and then I still keep getting punctures. But I realized that my faith needs to have a space to grow to work. So I kept making it grow. And the more it grew, the more my faith got stronger. And the more that got stronger, the more it worked. So I mean, you can go off to this with logic and say, “Well, you know, didn’t you ride the same roads?” “Yes, I did.” “Well, how come you didn’t get more punctures?” “You mean to say there was angels blowing dust away from your tires and thorns away from your tires?” Probably. Probably. It could also be included. We’re going to go ride here today. No, no. On the spur of the moment, we make a decision. We say, “No, let’s not ride this road. We’re going to go ride here today.” And to us, it just seems like it was a human decision in making. Meanwhile, I can’t put it past my angel sitting on my shoulder whispering to my ear. “Go another way today, John.” Why? “Because that road is going to give you punctures and you’re making a confession. You want puncture-free riding. So I need to get you on another road because that road’s full of glass, thorns, whatever gets blown in, all that stuff.”
I don’t quit on faith because my faith doesn’t work perfectly every time. Because if I quit on faith, then I’ve got nothing else to faith for. I’ve got nothing else in my walk with God because if it’s not based on faith, then what have we got? And so faith is not about logic. It’s not about being able to mentally have a capacity that can figure God out and can figure out how this happened or it didn’t happen. That’s why it’s no point in us having ongoing conversations about what happened here. All I know, I know this for sure, that the devil tried to kill Jesus number of times. It was formed against Him, many times, many times. But He just came through it. And guess what? This is not going to stop our church. This is not going to stop what we can do. I’m telling you now, even by next week we’ll have a measure of this thing up and running. We’ll have some form of our systems back. Even by next week. Even by next week. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
So that word righteousness, in a broad sense, state of him who is as he ought to be. Him who is as you ought to be. So if Jesus is living in your heart, then the state that you’re in is as it ought to be. He created you body, soul, and spirit. The body you already have. You were born with it. The soul you already have. Now your spirit man, is either switched off to God or it’s alive to God. That is based on choice. And that He won’t interfere with, once you become an adult. Right? Now our whole walk that we’re going to walk in life with, is we are going to walk this whole time you’re on the earth, we are going to walk in this single body that you have with all of the inputs from the situations around us into your soul. Whatever’s in your spirit is either going to agree with what your soul and your mind and your body’s doing or your spirit man is going to be stronger. The strength of your spirit man depends on how much you are willing to seek Him. Seek Him. That’s going to depend on the strength of your spirit man, seeking Him. Now him, you being who you are as you ought to be, is you born again and your spirit is alive to God. Your spirit man now has the right to tell your soul and your body what to do. Yes? When you behave in a less integrated version, this is what happens. Your spirit might be born again, but your body and your mind might be in a place where they have a different viewpoint to what’s in your spirit.
So a person who lives, who is a born-again Christian, who lives in mind and body will be conflict with themselves all of their life until something happens. Until they say, “Spirit man, I’m going to park you. I don’t want to hear from you because I’m making a choice for something else. I want something that is more amenable to my soul and more valuable to my body. So shut up, spirit. I’m wanting these things in life. I’ll tell you something. In some ways, God admires people that make that kind of black and white decision because He says, “I would rather have you hot or cold. Don’t sit in the middle.” The people that sit in the middle are just confusing people because they sound like they’re very on fire for God, but actually they’re making very different choices. So in church and around church people, they act one way, but in the world, they act a completely different way.
God is not interested in those kind of people. But unfortunately, that’s the majority of the church. The majority of church says, “I want to fit in with everything else that’s going on in the world, but I also want to fit in a church.” So they look good in church. They raise their hands. They come to maybe even a prayer meeting, but they go and do whatever the world does. It confuses everybody. It’s better for Christians to say, “Hey, we’re Christians, but we want to live like you all.” I’ll tell you what, even unbelievers will admire you for that because at least you’re making a stand for where you’re at, but to live in a confused state confuses you. Hey? So I’m just going to say in a broad sense, the state of him who is as he ought to be righteous, the condition acceptable to God. When Jesus lives in your heart, you are now acceptable to God, right? You are acceptable to God. So, what God doesn’t want us to do is he doesn’t want us to talk in parables anymore. He wants us to go after the truth.
Now I’m going to just read you this passage of scripture. Let me just make sure that I’ve covered the things that I need to cover in my notes here. Remember what I said about how important knowledge is to us or information. Information and knowledge is a good thing. You would agree? Information and knowledge is a good thing. It’s not a bad thing. I’ll tell you what, I have a mobile phone here and there is a lot of stuff that this mobile phone can do that I don’t use it for. You want to ask me why? Thank you, Miranda. She said, “Why?” Well, because I don’t want to take the time to find out what all this phone can do because if I did that, I’d become so integrated with the phone.
I would have to think like what this is capable of doing all the time. So even people that are really good at using their phone, you will find they probably only use maybe thirty or forty percent of their phone, because what they’ve done is they’ve just created so much stuff on the phone that you can’t absorb all of it, use all of it. You might get some people that, for example, that are into the photographic world and so they probably use ninety percent of what the camera can do and the software that goes with it. Then you find some people that are really into the business side of it and they use their phone to get emails out and to get maybe to do some spreadsheets, to do some word documents, to do some things and start moving those things around and maybe while they’re traveling and you’ll probably find most people use the music features a lot and so probably most people can tell you all about the music features.
They can tell you quite a bit about the photographic features and the rest is just; let me make a phone call, let me save something, you know, basic features. But you need that information just to work the phone, right? Just to work the phone you need that information. The more information you get, the more you can work the phone. So it’s good. But working the phone and knowing what the phone can do is useless if I don’t have a SIM card in it and I can’t connect it with anything else in the world. Yes? So having a SIM card connected and knowing how it works that’s understanding. Right?
Now there are some people that we have strategic significant communications with from time to time, and to make a phone call to that person on the wrong moment could bring about the wrong message. Yeah? So wisdom comes from knowing what you know, understanding how it works but then not doing those things when you shouldn’t be doing those things. So wisdom is not texting while you’re driving. You have knowledge of how the phone uses, you know what it can do, you understand what it does. Wisdom says don’t text and drive. In fact wisdom says put it on speaker phone and drive on speaker phone so you are not having to use your hands while you’re driving. Yes? We need wisdom, we need knowledge, we need understanding and we need wisdom.
Do you remember I said the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom which means all the stuff that you need to know about God, understand about God will cause you to fear God. Not in the sense that, “I’m afraid He’s going to beat me,” but in the sense of, “All of true life is in Him, and to the measure I’m not living in Him, I fear that I am going to make a mess of it.” Yeah. Praise the Lord. Are you all with me this morning?
So if I go to Second Corinthians chapter 9 verse 6, I’m reading this from the New Living translation. 6 Remember this – a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. 7 You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. So if you ever think that anything I say is pressuring you to give, keep your money in the bank. Because if you’re giving because I’m pressurising you, it’s better you keep your money in the bank. My commitment to you and you all have been around me many, many years, many of you, you know that’s the one thing I’m very careful to do is to preach about money accurately and not pressurise anybody. If there’s anything that I do on the flip side is, I’m probably more stand-offish about money than I am talking about money. Because I know the thing that gets people bent out of shape more often, more quickly, it’s about money because unfortunately, the church has developed a reputation. Unfortunately, you know, because of some people that misuse the pulpit for money matters. But money is such a big part of our world that if we don’t bring the Truth about it then we’re only going to have one set of information that comes to us and that’s not from the Bible, it’s going to come from economists and accountants and people who want to dominate the earth with money. And they don’t care if they take all your money, they want to dominate the earth with money. The church is the only legitimate organization that knows how to manage money properly. And so, unfortunately, those churches that have compromised money management, compromise the whole church. But you can’t throw us all together in one basket. Yes.
So, don’t give based on pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”[c] 8 And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. 9 As the Scriptures say, “They share freely and give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will be remembered forever.”[d] 10 For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity[e] in you. 11 Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God (2 Corinthians 9:6-11 NLT).
So, two good things will result from this ministry of giving. The needs of the believers in Jerusalem will be met and they will joyfully express their thanks to God. As a result of your ministry they will give glory to God for your generosity to them and to all believers will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ and they will pray for you with deep affection because of the overflowing grace God has given you.
Now I’m wanting you to recognise and understand here this morning that the Apostle Paul was not shy, he was not shy to talk about money. I want to read to you verse 10 from the Amplified Bible and it says this, 10 And God who provides seed for the sower and bread for eating will also provide and multiply your resources for sowing, increase the fruit of your righteousness which manifests itself in active goodness kindness and charity (2 Corinthians 9:10 AMPC).
So isn’t it interesting that in Matthew chapter 6 the whole Scripture is about what you’re going to eat, what you’re going to drink, what you’re going to wear. Which master are you going to serve? Are you going to serve; the system of the world or you’re going to serve God’s system? But if you choose to serve God’s system scripture says you will never have a need for anything because God provides seed for the sower and He provides bread for the eating and He will generously take care of you and your righteous way, the way that you ought to be, you are as you ought to be, generous, will cause you to be in a place where people will give thanks to God and praise because of your generosity. And God, through you, He will use you to touch people around you. This sounds like a very active church.
So here the Apostle Paul is exactly talking about what Jesus was talking about in Matthew chapter 6. The difference is that Paul says, “Hey you people who sow seed if you sow seed sparingly, you’re going to reap sparingly. I mean this is not rocket science. If you just throw a few seeds you’re going to get a small harvest. You sow big seeds”, you’re going to get a big harvest. Amen. Hallelujah.
I want to be in a place where I am following God righteously, rightly. I want to be integrated with God. Don’t you? Don’t you want to be integrated with God? I want to be integrated with God. I want to think like He thinks. I want to speak like He speaks. I want to act like He acts. And I want to be a fully integrated person. I am pleased to say that I work and minister with and am connected to a man, Brother Jerry, who has a high level of integratedness. Yes? High level of integratedness. It doesn’t mean to say that every decision he makes is perfect or that everything he does is perfect. But when you’ve been in the ministry for 55 years you understand there’s things that can shift and move and sometimes you have to adapt.
I like to believe that anytime I’ve spoken to you about something we’re going to do in the ministry, we have done it. I like to think that I’m an integrated person. What I think, and what I speak, and what I do is the same thing. Yes. Well, on that score, you know, we that think like God, speak like God, and act like God, we become the vehicles. We become the vehicles where He gives you seed for sowing, and He gives you bread for eating, and He will cause a generous spirit to become so big in you that you keep through your generosity, keep giving and it keeps getting returned to you by the same level of generosity by God. Because He’s integrated and He’s asking you to be integrated with Him. So, do you think He’s asking you to be generous and then He’s going to be stingy? Then He’s not integrated, then He’s not holy, then He’s not God.
I can say through experience, I’ve never been in a place where I’ve given stuff to God, and I’ve walked out and obeyed God, and done things for God where He hasn’t responded many, many times over with blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing and it never stops. The blessing never stops, it just keeps coming. Blessing, blessing, blessing just keeps coming. Hallelujah.
Why? Because when it comes to living my life, I’m integrated and where I’m not integrated my heart is, “Lord, I need to do better.” And sometimes He gets deep inside here with His Word. Deep inside here, and He takes His Word and He brings His Word to me and He just starts to cut. “Lord, what are You cutting?” “I’m cutting the soul pattern, this habit, that you have. I’m cutting it out of your life. My Word is bringing life. I’ve got to cut this malignant habit, this cancerous way of living, I’ve got to cut it out of your life, otherwise, you’re going to eventually die from it.” “But Lord, it feels so painful it’s so sore. I really don’t… Please stop.” No, don’t stop, because I really want to think like Him I really want to talk like Him. I really want to keep living like Him at the highest possible level that I can go. And if He’s a real good Father then that real good Father will keep doing that. He’ll keep going at it. He’ll keep going, “You’re My son, I want you to do better. I want you to think like Me, talk like Me and act like Me because I want to get more stuff to you. I want you to… I want you to…” Hey this is our crossover. This is our crossover from thinking like the systems want us to think to the way God wants us to think. Hallelujah!
I’m not going to speak about this one way or another but I’ll tell you that God is watching over the earth and He’s got all of His Son’s prayers, that while He was here on the earth, He’s got all of His Son’s prayers that stand before Him. Remember Jesus was on the earth and while He was on the earth He prayed a lot of prayers. He prayed prayers for the people that were on the earth at the time, and then He prayed prayers for the church that was to come. And those prayers are in the face of the Father, in the presence of the glory of God, and God is watching over those things. And I’m going to finish now my message with this passage of scripture. You got something out of this today? I know this is a different service because technology and all the other stuff that have happened today but the Word of God is still true. And we are still united together in our spirits and there’s nothing going to stop us from pressing into God. We’re going to keep pushing and pressing into God. Hallelujah! Glory to God!
I’m so excited in my spirit because really I know there’s some more good things coming to us. There’s a lot more good things coming to us. There’s a lot more good things coming to us. A lot more! A lot more! I know that I’ve learned over the years when the devil comes to attack us like this I get more aggressive with my faith, I get more aggressive with my giving. The only way to beat the devil is not to try and figure out what happened, the way to get aggressive and to go get real victory is to do what God tells you to do, and behave, speak and do what He did. So Jesus, you know, He talked about John, the Baptist as the greatest man that ever lived, go read it. John, the Baptist who came to say, “Here comes the Lamb.” He came to baptise people and declare, “This is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” He declared His coming Jesus says, “This man, John, the Baptist is the greatest man that ever lived.”
So then Herod makes a promise to one of the women in his company in his ear, that he’ll give them John the Baptist’s head on a platter for a birthday present or for a present for a gift. So time came, delivered that to me and he did, cut off John the Baptist’s head and deliver it on a platter. So what does Jesus do? He goes out immediately into the streets and He starts healing people. He doesn’t mourn his death, He doesn’t go and put sackcloth and ashes over himself as was the Jewish custom, He doesn’t, it was His cousin. Their moms were connected. I don’t want to get complicated now but their moms were connected. But He goes out and He starts healing and He starts preaching the Good News. What did he understand? “Oh devil, you come into trying to cause confusion and trying to show that you have some influence and some power. I’ll fix this thing, I’ll just keep doing the Will of the Father. I’ll go and heal some people. I’ll go and preach the Gospel, the Good News. I’ll go and do what needs to get done here. I’m not going to be moved by you, not one second.” Amen. Hallelujah.
Isaiah chapter 55 verse 6, this is the New King James version, 6 Seek the Lord while He may be found. Now you all know, hey? If we don’t have stuff up here, you better start bringing Bibles to Church. If you don’t have a Bible on your phone get one. I mean it’s quite interesting to me nowadays, I say, “Let’s look up there.” I see people take their phones out and they immediately start to do this, I know they’re looking for the Bible because their holding their phones are up but the people that go like this, I don’t know what you’re doing with your phone in church? (Brynn talking to Pastor John) Okay and that’s good. You’re not texting. I wouldn’t expect you to because otherwise I would break your kneecaps. With my Cuba bat that’s in my office. You all have seen my Cuba bat? They know the Cuba bat. They know all about it.
Anyway, 6 Seek the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. The unrighteous, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. What we’ve been talking about? Integrated. So what does this scripture says? Let the wicked integrated person forsake his integration so he can exchange it for a different integration. I don’t want to be integrated with thoughts, words and deeds that are wicked and unrighteous. I want to be integrated with thoughts, words and deeds that are righteous. 7 Let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon (Isaiah 55:6-7 NKJV).
Does that sound like God wants to hold something against you? I mean, you know, there were a number of years where my sons behaved differently according to the way I have wanted my sons to behave in my household. [Brynn comments; completely carnal] So, I don’t let you preach but he says, “Completely carnal.” He lived as he chose to live and my other son too. Here is what I would say to Pastor Sharon all the time, I would say, “Babe, whatever he does I can disagree with, whatever he does I can even correct him for it and I can even make sure that he has a form of consequence that’s related to his actions but the one thing we can never do is have such a way of dealing with him that it destroys our relationship.” I said, “Our relationship is always more important than being right or wrong. Always.” I raised my sons to know that my relationship with them is never dependent on their performance. It’s never dependent on their goodness or their badness. My relationship with them was always dependent on my love for them that is unconditional and it can never change through their behaviour. So the result is that no matter how bad their behaviour was, they always knew they had an open relationship with me and that there’s always love here and there’s always safety here and there’s always security here in my love.
So, “Did you do something wrong?” “Yes.” “You’re going to get stuck in your room for the next month on weekends. You’re not going anywhere,” for example, you know. That doesn’t mean to say there wasn’t correction and that there wasn’t a consequence for his wrongdoing. This was when he was a teenager and he was too old to smack. He could have smacked me back. I didn’t want that either. He would never do that, no, no. But I’m just saying, there comes a point where you can’t discipline your kids with a belt or with something anymore but you can discipline your kids in other ways and so as he got older, they got disciplined in other ways. It didn’t change my love for him, didn’t change the fact that I was there for him to surround him and to hold him and to do everything I could to protect him but I also couldn’t prevent him from the consequences because consequences are the things that will bring you back to your senses. So, God the Father is the same with us. He says, “Come on, love Me, seek Me, seek after Me and it doesn’t matter whether you’re good or bad in your behaviour, whether you perform better than someone else as a Christian, whether you’re the best performing Christian because I don’t look at performance. I just have my love towards you. It’s unconditional. Jesus died for you so that I don’t have to judge your sin. All you need to do is come and ask for forgiveness and you’ll have access to Me.”
This is simple. 7 … abundant pardon. 8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. 10For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, 11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void. In other words, “As the rain comes down, as the snow comes down and doesn’t go back to the heavens but it does on the earth what it needs to do, so is My word that goes out.” Once it’s sent it doesn’t come back to Him. It goes down and it fixes and does what it’s supposed to do and the fruit of that comes back to Him. 11 … But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. 12 For you shall go out with joy, And be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands (Isaiah 55:7-12 NKJV). Hallelujah. So, as we are crossing over, it is my desire that you are receiving knowledge. You’re receiving information but equally it’s my desire that you move on from information to understanding because understanding is important if you’re going to have wisdom. Right? Hallelujah.
So the way that the body of Christ is supposed to act together is that we have to be watching out for each other because how many of you know you can get caught up in your own emotions and you can get up in your own ideas. You can get caught up in your own desires for your life. In a couple of weeks Dennis Peacocke is going to come here and he’s going to minister and he taught me this phrase; the head justifies what the heart chooses. So here’s what happens to the Christian. The Christian is giving thought; I want to go buy that car, I want to go buy that car, I want to go buy that car. You come to church on a Sunday and the Lord is saying to you, you need to be putting Him first, seeking Him first, doing things that are needful for Him first. And so the Lord begins to say to you, “You need to sow a seed here. You need to sow a seed here and if you do that the car will come.” Then the Christian walks away and says, “No, I think I’m just going to buy the car.” Now they don’t have seed to sow but they’ve got a new car.
So now there’s nothing that God can work with in your life because you’ve made a choice for yourself. Now if you came to somebody that you could talk to that had some spiritual maturity and you say, “Hey listen I can either sow the seed or I can buy this car, what do you suggest?” He says, “Well look if you put a seed into the ground are you going to get a harvest? How much harvest are you going to get?” Thirty, sixty, hundred fold, right? So, do you want to buy a car that costs this money and it’s one time and you never get the money back? Even if you buy a Toyota it does lose value not much but it does lose value. So, either you buy the car or you sow seed. “But then I’m not going to have my new car.” “But what if the seed grows up and you get a harvest and He gives more abundantly? And now you can buy the car cash and you can buy the car like this and a better car or whatever. But now you’ve done it the right way.” “Yeah but then I’ve got to go for two years without getting a new car.”
So, do you understand how your desire is interfering with wisdom and understanding? But if someone comes to tell you, someone like the Pastor. Then someone like the Pastor will immediately you know have … Potentially people could say this, “That Pastor all he wants is for you to sow your seed. He doesn’t want you to buy a new car because he, see they need money in the church. See he needs money for this or he needs money for that. So, he’s got an agenda. That is why.” That’s just not true. That’s not true, it’s not true. If I do that if I am self-centered in the way that I do things with money like that. Number one I answer to God number two I’m not integrated and if I start behaving in an unintegrated way I will have consequences. Amen.
We have a business person here in the church and there was a moment in his career that was a crossroad moment for him. So, he came to have a conversation with me about it and I prayed beforehand about what should be said in that conversation. The Lord said to me before he came the Lord said to me, “He’s got to sow a seed.” So, you know when the Lord tells me stuff like that I always, I ask the Lord, “Please don’t let me say that.” Because it almost sounds like God is conditional but God is not a conditional God. God is a process principle God and farming is something that He understands. Right. You sow a seed you get a harvest. So, when we had a conversation we had spiritual agreement on the next steps that needed to be taken in his business. We had spiritual agreement and then I said, “This is not easy for me to say but you need to sow a seed.” He said, “No Pastor John, when I was on my way here the Lord already told me I must sow a seed.” And that seed ended up in a very short space of time resolving all the issues that needed to be resolved in his business. And he hasn’t looked back since. His life is a walking living testimony in the company because of what God did. Amen, praise the Lord.
There are many details about that, that I’m not talking to you about but I wanted to just use that as an indication to you that in the life of the spirit, God’s got answers. Information is one thing, understanding is another thing. Wisdom when they all work together you get good momentum and you get good go forward. And God can do things in your business in three months that you couldn’t do in 30 years. He can do things quickly because as you sow God has got something that He can work with. Because you say, “I’m seeking Him, I’m seeking Him.” Hallelujah.
That… this is a word that the Holy Spirit is urging me to speak out of my spirit right now. So, I have to do this. That thing, those things that you are hanging on to that you’re reluctant to let go of God has already been speaking to some people in this auditorium that there are things that you have to get… you have to let go of so that you can be free to move into the next the next thing that God has for you. While you’re holding on to those things, you will not get free. All you’ll be hearing is information. You will not move into understanding and you will not move into wisdom, while you’re holding on to the things that God is saying, “Let go of those things.” Yeah. Wow, hallelujah. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise Jesus, glory to God glory to God. Glory to Jesus, glory to Jesus, glory to Jesus, glory to Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah, praise the Lord.
I would like you to stand with me, please. Praise the Lord praise the Lord praise the Lord thank you thank you. Yes, we need to take up an offering so I guess you better be seated again because you’ve got to reach far down to your handbags or to your wallet. Hallelujah.
See, this is a this is a big… this is a thing that I have to work with because we haven’t taken up offerings for so long. And the Lord said, “This year you’ve got to take up offerings” and so I almost forgot in the services to take up offerings and so I got a reminder. Because it’s important for us to sow seeds when we hear messages. Yes? Hallelujah, praise the Lord.
Thank You, thank You, thank You Jesus, thank You Jesus, thank You Jesus. Thank You, Jesus, thank You, Jesus. All right everybody, I just want to make another statement while we are taking up the offering. I’m not going to make a decision about the whole year but I am going to make a call that we are going to have special services on Easter weekend. Because it’s the next time I’m not going to have services necessarily for the whole holiday period but I am going to ask us to have services on Easter weekend because I know that people will not be working and they can come to church. If you want to take leave and go away because children are on holiday and you can take leave outside of Easter well, that’s on you but I’m going to give God first fruit. And I want us to do the Easter weekend and then I will I’ll let you know some more details as we go forward, amen. Hallelujah, praise Jesus.
When you’ve got all the bags, I can pray over it. I just want you to know that we are really careful and cautious and very… we have a lot of plans in place. For example, while you’re in church here, we have security people that are… have the necessary capability to neutralize a threat if anybody came into this auditorium and tried to do anything. We’ve put the fences up outside so that our cars are also not available to people that want to come and steal them while we’re in church or bible school or anything like that. And we did a whole lot of security for this building. They found a loophole through it which is not a surprise but I’m just wanting you to know that we are careful in the way we go about things. I do believe we have the knowledge, the understanding and the wisdom to do what we have done. Obviously, we’ve got to do more. But, in the meantime, we’re going to get new stuff and better stuff. Amen. Please stand with me, please.
Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father, for Your Word that comes to us, that sets us free. Thank you for truth, truth. We live by Your truth. We live because You are the Way, the Truth and the Life. And we are so full of Your life and full of Your ways and living in Truth. And so, I ask You, and we all agree in faith together, that You will multiply the seed sown, You will multiply bread for eating and You will multiply resources to those that have sown seed, Father. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.
I want to just say to you; if you’re in a financial position where you find it difficult to sow seed, there are other ways you can sow seed. You can come here and offer time and do hours and you can work and do stuff if you need seed to sow and you don’t have money-seed to sow. There are ways that this can be done. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
Won’t you put your hand on your heart like this and make this declaration with me and say; I am a son of God. Jesus lives in my heart. Thank you, Lord, that I am a seed sower and I reap a harvest of life, joy and peace, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So, I pray over you and I declare over you that no weapon formed against you will prosper. I pray that the Word of God and the blood of Jesus surrounds you and protects you. I pray that you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace. I pray that you will be blessed in all your goings and all of your comings. I pray that you are just blessed in everything that you put your hands to, wherever your feet go, you are blessed, in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I pray that the glory of God shines through you and becomes a witness and a testimony to all of the people that are around you, in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah.
I want to say thank you to the Father for keeping my wife safe. You know, unknowing to me, or to Sharon, Miranda went to go and shop at Woolworths and they knew her to be our daughter-in-law and they told Miranda that they had to get Sharon out of a conflict situation. Isn’t God good? Isn’t God good? He just protects us, you know. And equipment is equipment that just gets replaced. Hallelujah. But, we keep moving forward. Hallelujah.
So, just watch this space for WhatsApp. Now, we have to do WhatsApp. We can’t go live on YouTube and all that kind of stuff. WhatsApp for now. Morning Moments will still be going this week. So, that’s already done for this coming week. Moenie worry nie, don’t panic, it’s all under control. Oh, Message Moments this afternoon five o’clock – same-a-ting, same-a-ting, same-a-ting. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Bye.
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