Scripture reference: Ephesians 1:11-12 (MSG); 1 John 3:7-9 (MSG)
Hallelujah! Hey man, I tell you what, it’s wonderful to have sounds like that – to go to church and worship the Lord with sounds like that, isn’t it? Praise the Lord! Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Are you glad you’re in church today? Ja, me too, and it’s very nice when you have a church that looks like this [gestures to auditorium set up]. Hey? And when you go home on things that look like this [gestures to motorbikes]. It’s pretty cool hey? Praise the Lord.
Well, won’t you agree with me, that the Holy Spirit, will take both the worship and the words and touch your life today, touch your heart today and bring a change to you, bring growth and increase and good new things into your life. Will you agree with me? Well, then it is so. Otherwise said as amen. You may be seated.
It’s such an opportunity for us, in this sort of semi-lockdown period, level 3 that we are able to have smaller congregations and have multiple services every day. It has given us an opportunity to kind of be led by the Holy Spirit that we can change things up in the auditorium, we can bring these kinds of sets in, we can do different kind of services, and to me, I believe this is an order that God wants us to continue as a ministry one way or another, to have different kinds of services, doing different kinds of things. Amen. Hallelujah.
The Chariots of Light Ministry was started with Brother Jerry, Brother Copeland and Brother Jesse Duplantis, kind of going out on bicycle rides together, and there were others that were included in that, and having some fun together on bikes and then the Lord began to speak to them, to use it as a tool to touch people’s lives. Part of the reason why we’re showcasing Chariots of Light as a ministry, is because what part of this ministry stands for, is the fun that Christians can have while touching the world with the Light and that should be the ethos of every Christian; we’re supposed to enjoy God and enjoy the good things of God, but we should also do things that help other people.
I’m going to read you this scripture in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 11 and then I’m going to tell you a story. 11-12 It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone. (Ephesians 1:11-12 MSG) Without God, you’re born with a reason and purpose. What I’m saying is that even if Christians, even if people don’t make Jesus Lord and Saviour of their life, they’re born into a purpose. God never designs, creates, or lets anything into the world without purpose. There is no waste in God. God has no waste management department. This might be hard for you to understand, but God has no waste management department. God doesn’t waste a thing. Everything God brings into the universe is perfect, it’s good, it has a purpose, it has an assignment and it’s built to make something and to provide for something.
People that have not made Jesus Lord and Saviour of their life, they’re searching all the time; they’re doing this, they might use their skill, their God-given skill, their God-given talent, their God-given assignment even, to do it, but in a place that glorifies themself rather than glorifies God. That’s got to be one of the most empty places you can live in your life, because on the one hand, you think you’re making money or becoming famous or doing something really good with our talent, but in the end, when you realise if you’re doing it for you and not for God, it becomes a bit worthless.
A while ago, I think it was last year sometime, maybe the wintertime, maybe June, July sometime, we did a Chariots ride to Diepsloot and we spent quite a lot of time just mingling with the people at Diepsloot, praying with people and leading people to Jesus, in Diepsloot. Pastor Melusi called me during the course of last week and he asked if he can be excused to go and do a funeral in Mafikeng. The funeral was from someone in the church in Diepsloot and so they were going to get buried at their traditional burial site.
Here’s a letter that was written to him; Dear Chariot, I think it was from her husband or someone that was with her. Dear Chariot, my heart is full of gratitude, so I thought I should share. We are from laying the body of one of our Diepsloot church members to rest. It is a great consolation to know that last year during the Chariots of Light outreach, she accepted Jesus and made Him Lord. According to her background, I can almost say she had no chance of knowing the Lord, but through your obedience, an opportunity was created for her to make that milestone decision in her life. All glory to God. Never make light of that platform, everywhere, to touch a soul. Blessings.
I mean, that’s really powerful, that we went and we spent a day at Diepsloot and we’re touching people and we’re giving them food and we’re doing all the practical good things, but when you get a testimony like that, that person for whatever reason, it could have been Covid-19 reasons, whatever, she died.
Last year, she made the decision to make Jesus the Lord and Saviour of her life, and I can say with confidence, that she now lives eternally with Jesus. What a grand thing, and we all had a part in that, because we all showed up in our bikes, we all showed up. The show that we put up attracted people to come and see what’s going on here and hear what is going on here. Then we had a chance to witness to people and lead them to Jesus. Praise the Lord.
I read from one John chapter 3 verse 7, 7So, my dear children, don’t let anyone divert you from the truth. It’s the person who acts right who is right, just as we see it lived out in our righteous Messiah. 8Those who make a practice of sin are straight from the devil, the pioneer in the practice of sin. The Son of God entered the scene to abolish the devil’s ways. 9People conceived and brought into life by God don’t make a practice of sin. How could they? God’s seed is deep within them, making them who they are. It’s not in the nature of the God-begotten to practice and parade sin (1 John 3:7-9 MSG).
I would like to explain this to you in this way. If I’ve been raised my whole life, if I’ve been raised and if it’s a cultural value, maybe you’ve been raised like this. If you’ve been raised your whole life that, when you wake up in the morning, you have to make up your bed, brush your teeth and then go and have Future-life breakfast. I am saying that because I know it happens to a lot of families. It’s not my first preference of breakfast or some kind of cereal or some kind of easy breakfast, before you head out to school or work or whatever and maybe includes a cup of coffee.
Now they come out with a test to say, that when you drink coffee in the morning, it spikes your insulin and your sugar levels, to such a point that you don’t want to eat for the next three hours and that it messes with your blood sugar metabolism and the way you actually feel and the way you think about things, because of this irritation that is going on in your body, that you might not know about, you just might feel in a ugly mood, but it is coffee that is doing it to you. The Future-life, and all of that carbs. sugar and all of that caffeine and all of that thrown into the mix early in the morning spikes your blood sugar levels and gets you in a buzz, but actually when it starts dropping you, you feel terrible.
I think I’ve touched on a sore point here. What if a study comes out that says, “Listen, this stuff is so bad for you, if you just cut out those foods, it will change the way that you can actually think. You have increased intellectual capacity. It makes your energy levels steady and stable through the day, so that you may be able to perform better. You’re able to do things in a way and have a sense of wellbeing that is way beyond what you’re experiencing now. If you just cut out your Future-life and your coffee.”
Now you sit with a problem. I’m used to doing this, this is my routine of my life. Many people will say, “Ag man, doesn’t matter what science says, it hasn’t harmed me till now, I’m gonna keep doing it.” Yes? So, I am trying to describe to you what happens when a Chrisitan gets born again, when Jesus comes and lives in their hearts. What’s happened to them is, this life that’s come into them automatically wants to tell them stop eating Future-life and drinking coffee. It’s not good for you, but you are in a habit of drinking coffee and Future-life in the morning. That doesn’t change the fact that Jesus is in your heart. It just means that you have a habit, that you continue to keep doing. Are you all with me?
Every now and again Jesus is going to send someone into your life, the Holy Spirit, a person or a person like me, that will tell you in a morning like this, “Stop Future-life and coffee in the morning.” What shall I eat, what shalI have as an alternative? You could try half an avo, a bit of tomato, balsamic. You could try fresh spinach juice. I said that on purpose. I mean there’s lots of alternatives, I am trying to make a point to you, that if I said to you, “I’ll make you a concoction which is carrot, orange and spinach juice in the morning and it might have a few other a little bit of ginger in there and things like that. I give you some things to eat that will actually lift you up and keep you going for most of the morning and won’t give you a high and most certainly will not drop you, you might say, “Keep it, I’m not so happy with that. I’ll have my coffee and my Future-life.”
You understand how powerful habits are? Some things we learned from our years as kids. You do not want to give up that habit. That doesn’t change that Jesus is alive in you. It doesn’t change that you always wanted to change and sometimes those habits and the trigger points of those habits, like for example you walk into the kitchen in the morning and you now determined you have your spinach and orange juice and your Mom’s busy making coffee. Suddenly the orange and spinach juice goes out of the window and like you normally do you grab coffee.
If you say, “Hey Lord, I really want to do the best that I can do for me and for You and give myself in the best possible way that I can give myself to You. Please help me to quit that stuff and help me to make better choices.” Now you do not need to try it on your own, what you need to do is let the power of God, if you keep speaking it, keep speaking it. One day you are just going to walk into the house and the coffee is going to be boiling, and it is going to smell like – nheh – horrible, what’s that horrible smell? “But this is the coffee you always drink?” “No but it’s horrible, I am not interested” and you walk out.
Tomorrow you come back: horrible smell. That’s how the Word of God works, in a Christian that has to get rid of something. It is not for you to get rid of it, it is for the Word of God to grow up in you, that gets rid of it. I’m preaching good thank you, amen.
Today I want to tell you, very quickly about Chariots, and I want to tell you about Wade, Brother Jerry’s cousin. Brother Jerry’s cousin had some unfortunate things happen to him in his youth, and I was actually reading some notes that I made when I was meeting with Brother Jerry. We were at the table and I made some notes because of some of the things that came out and I made this note because his story was so powerful to me.
I made a note and he said, and I made here, he said: “Wade Porter, a contest for a man’s life and soul.” What I had forgotten in the first service is that, actually what happened was that he went and he visited a – he was so desperate to have some spiritual guidance in his life and some truth in his life, that he went and he visited a Shaman, and this Shaman gave him a mixture which they call Pyodi, which is natural herbs, I guess that is stronger than marijuana, more dangerous, it has much more hallucinatory things in it. When he engaged in that, it was almost like it was a trigger point for dark forces to come and to begin to influence his life.
The end result was that he went, and he had some difficulty with jobs, people and finding things, and he ended up in a gang, a big gang in Houston, a violent gang doing many things, and ultimately he became the man that would do the gang’s “wet work,” dirty work, where people were removed, if they were a problem.
Eventually something happened, he wanted to get out, he didn’t want to live this life anymore, and they put a hit on him. So he ran, he ran into the mountains of Montana. One day Brother Jerry was praying and the Lord said to him, “You must go and look for Wade, he was in a bad way, he needs Me and he needs you. Go and go look for Wade.”
Brother Jerry phoned his dad and said will you take a road trip with me, I want to ride to Montana and go look for Wade. “But where is he living?” “I don’t know.”
I mean Montana is at least the size of the Free state and Cape Town put together, you know. I mean the Western Cape, I mean it is just a huge state, it’s massive, it is on the border of Canada and it comes a long way down into the south, and it is just wide open spaces, they call it big sky country. It’s just huge, hundreds of kilometers and hundreds of miles between towns and cities. So, anyway, they got there under the leading of the Holy Spirit. Brother Jerry decided to start at a town called Billings and he went into places where a guy like Wade would frequent. Eventually, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, they found a person, they showed him a picture, and he said, “You know that guy looks familiar, but, he might have been here, but I think he is in another town, you might want to go and look there.”
Brother Jerry and his dad took a drive, and they went to that town and again they did the same process, but I mean, Montana is huge. They are being led by the Holy Spirit and they went to the next town, and they went to places, saloons, bars or whatever where he would frequent, potentially places where he might go.
They got to a guy, and he said, “Oh yeah, I know that guy, but his name is not Wade, his name is Bear” “Where could we find Bear?” “Well, we are not exactly sure where Bear lives, he just comes and goes, but he is somewhere up in the mountains,” apparently he has got some log cabin somewhere up in the mountains, and it is in that region, and that is a vast area, so good luck with that.
Anyway, so they got into the car, and they just followed the leading of the Holy Spirit. Eventually they arrived at his cabin, and so here is Bear, spending his days witling, using his knife and wood and he is making little animals and little things from wood. Here he is living, big beard, dirty mountain man, full of tattoos, in a bad way, you can imagine. The life that he was living, that he was running from, all of those horrible things still lived with him, I mean, I can’t say, but he maybe took drugs, maybe he took alcohol to get to sleep every night, you know. When you have lived that kind of life then you have done those kinds of things sometimes those dreams and the memories are hard to live with.
Anyway, at first Wade didn’t want to talk to them, the first question he asked was: “How did you find me?” Because he was concerned that others would find him if Brother Jerry could find him. They spent a couple of days with Wade, they never tried to persuade him to do anything, they just lived with him. They made firewood, they chopped wood, they just did what Wade would do, for a couple of days.
Eventually Brother Jerry said to Wade. He said: “Wade, I want you to come home with me and I want you to come to church and I want you to come to the Bible School and come and sit in the Bible School for a year, and we will take care of you.” He said “No, I am not sure I can do that” So he said, “No pressure,” and so they left. Well, it was a week, a couple of weeks, maybe a month or two or whatever it was, that went by, Wade showed up at the door and he said, “I’m here, I’ll do this.”
So, they cleaned him up, gave him new clothes and sent him to Bible School. He started to grow. All of the things that God had placed in his life began to come out, and all of those bad habits and things began to fall away. I’ll tell you what if you get into the presence of God long enough, there isn’t a bad habit that can hold you and can control you and hold on to you. I’m telling you there is nothing in your life that God can’t deal with. He can fix everything.
Well, I’m trying to make the story short. Wade was invited by Brother Jerry, to go with him to John Osteen’s church, which has now become his son, Joel Osteen’s church. They went to go and minister there and at first Wade didn’t want to go because they were going back to Houston and this is the very place where the headquarters of this gang was.
He said, “Brother Jerry, if I go there, you don’t understand; if I go there and they find out I’m there, they’ll kill me. I’m still, I, that, that contract never dies. If anyone notices me, if anyone finds me, they’ll kill me.” He said, “Wade, you come, the Lord will protect you, we’ll be there, we won’t do anything, you know. We’ll be led by the Holy Spirit.” He said, “Alright, I’ll come.”
I’m really shortening the story. Off they went to John Osteen’s church. They did some ministry, were having some fellowship and so Wade ends up sharing his testimony with John, about all of these things, he went to the mountains, how Brother Jerry came to look for him, his being in Bible School and how God is busy transforming his life, and about the contract that’s out on him, you know.
John arranged some extra security and all of that, but he says, “Hey, I’m doing a live broadcast and you got to give your testimony on broadcast, that’s going to go to the whole city of Houston.” He says, “No, no, no, you don’t understand, that’s like calling them to a beacon, they’ll know I’m here.” Do we trust the power of God to, to actually set you free? Your testimony can be used by God in a very powerful way.
So, eventually he agreed, and he got on TV and he gave his testimony. The next night church services, the gang was in the service; the gang was there. They came to see what’s happened to this Wade. Whether he was faking it or, whether it’s time to take him now. The whole gang was there. All the core of the gang, that would have had to, that he would have known would have come to take him out, you know.
But guess what happened? By the end of the service, all of the gang members were bowing their knees, and they were lifting their hands towards heaven and they were giving their heart to Jesus. Before they left, they said to Wade, “Your contract is forgiven, you don’t have to worry about us anymore, your life is free.” Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.
Sometimes you just got to do something bold and you got to be and do something different in order for God to change your circumstances that look impossible. That looks unchangeable and it looks like you’re going to be on the run for the rest of your life. God is powerful enough, He’s strong enough, He’s amazing enough to be able to fix things that couldn’t be fixed. He can fix your things.
I’ll tell you what happened to Wade; he finished Bible School, he met a woman that he married. Eventually, Brother Jerry had started a missions program out in Kenya. It was growing, they started a church, they were with Brother Oral Roberts. They were doing a hospital, and they needed somebody that would take no nonsense from somebody, but who also was smart with his hands, clever, creative, to be able to build and establish the ministry there. They asked Wade and his wife to go and be the missionaries that lived on the ground, and Wade eventually died in Kenya. Serving the Lord Jesus, till his last breath. Serving the Lord Jesus, serving people, the people of Kenya and Nairobi, and now he’s gone to be with Jesus.
That’s quite a powerful and wonderful story. That’s why we use this platform. This platform is not for us to go and take, to try and help make people clean before they come to church. This platform is to go and touch people where they live their lives, that are damaged, that are bruised, that are broken, that have got no future, and go and tell them about Jesus. Bring them the ointment, the oil of healing, and restoration. Bring Jesus to them, and then He can clean them up His way.
It’s not for us to get people clean, we couldn’t do it even if we tried. You might be able to clean a bike, but you can’t clean a human from their emotional scars, and all of the baggage they have with them, but Jesus can, but Jesus can, but Jesus can, but Jesus can. That’s what He died for. He died so that all of those things can be forgiven and forgotten and you can live as a normal, new, clean, human being. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
Did you get something out of this service today? Hallelujah. Won’t you stand with me, please. Put your right hand on your left heart. Not your right heart, your left heart [laughter]. Praise the Lord. Let’s just pray this together; say, Jesus, thank You for cleaning me, from all the dirt in my life. Thank You, for removing my baggage. You are the Lord of my life. I thank You, that You give me strength and joy to live for You, and to live in You, and to live with purpose, in my life. Thank You for the Blood of Jesus. Lord, we ask You, that this love, can go to everybody we come into contact with. In Jesus’ name. Everybody said; Amen. Hallelujah.
I’ll tell you; if you prayed that prayer today, you are a child of God. You are a being of God, that is destined to do great things; great things. That great thing might be leading someone to Jesus today, just because your light shines. Tomorrow, the next day. It might be that and other things. Whatever it is, whatever it is in Jesus, it is great.
You great people, thank you for coming to church, it’s good to see you. Please leave now [laughter]. Be blessed in all that you do, be at peace, and prosper and be blessed. Have a wonderful protected week. Safe, healed, and whole.
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