16 January 2022 c
Scripture reference: Colossians 3:1-4 (TPT), 1 Peter 3:18 (NKJV & TPT); John 14:10 (MSG & AMPC); John 14:23,27 (TPT); Ephesians 3:14-15 (NKJV); Ephesians 4:15-22 (NKJV)
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus. Glory to the Name of the Lord. Just raise your hands and just say thank You, Lord. Thank You, Jesus. Praise You, Lord. Praise Your Name because You are good. You are God Almighty, Lord. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Glory to Jesus. We thank You, Lord, for the privilege of having Sound and Song that we can sing to You and worship You and express from our hearts in that way that You have eternally created for us to be beings that will hear sounds and create sounds and have music. Hallelujah. There is not a chord or an instrument that You are unaware of, hallelujah. Thank You, Lord.
I thank You, Father, that as we go into the next part of the service, every heart is ready to receive, every mind is quieted from distractions and focused on hearing from what You have to say. I thank You, Lord, that ears are ready to hear, and I thank You that Your Word will penetrate our hearts, will penetrate the barriers that have been set up by the filters of culture and all kinds of baggage that we might have in our lives. That You will deeply touch us and change us, by Your Spirit and by Your Word today, in Jesus’ Name, if you agree with that prayer, then say amen.
You may be seated. Oh, before you sit down, just say, “Hello, I’m glad you’re in Church today. Dankie dat jy gekom het en al daai goeters, jy weet, mooi goeters.” [Congregation greeting each other.] Praise the Lord. Glory to Jesus. Welcome. I’m glad you’re in Church this morning. I really am. You know, for too long in Covid, we preached to empty chairs, and it’s much better to have people in Church. Don’t you feel good about being in Church? [Congregation replies, “Yes!”] There’s something much more special about being with other people in Church. There’s a stronger anointing. There’s the Holy Spirit here. It’s just a good thing. Hallelujah. No wonder the devil tried to stop it. Huh, but not anymore, neh.
Hallelujah. Well, this is going to be a glory, glory time in the next couple of weeks. I just want you to know that we are starting construction as soon as possible, outside on the building by the car park, there right outside the building. Hopefully, we are starting construction this week on a deck that will eventually allow us to break open. We’re going to break out, and we’re going to create a deck, and we are going to sink a kind of small swimming pool actually because that’s the best that we can do right now. So, we’re going to sink a swimming pool in the deck, and then we’ll be able to close the swimming pool during the week and use the deck for us to sit on as a working team where we can have coffee outside and chat outside and have things going on outside.
The first phase is just to create a deck to have a swimming pool to do baptismal services. Amen. Hopefully, we’ll have that done. Well, soon as we can. We’re going to try and do and get it done as quickly as possible because the Lord really wants me to do baptism services. If you all want to get baptised, I can do that. Just not in one day. I have to work out between now and then. Hallelujah, praise the Lord.
There’s a lot of things that God’s doing, and already He is proving Himself to be Big and Bold for us in this year, beyond my wildest expectations. Some things happened even in this week. That is really, it’s beyond my wildest expectation, and we’re just waiting to have final conversations and set out terms of agreement and letters of agreement and usage, but God has made some land available to us in Slipstream. About a thousand hectares of land, available to us that we can run it and manage it on behalf of the owners and create single tracks, running tracks, cycling tracks, and it will be all ours. Hallelujah. Ha, ha, [Pastor John laughs] but joh, I’ll tell you what, it doesn’t take long for the Lord to say, “ Be Big and Bold Version Two in 22,” and then He shows up. I’d say that’s the Open Hand of God Extended towards us, don’t you think? Yes, with abundance and increase and blessing. Praise the Lord.
I’ve been talking about the Power of Resurrection, the Resurrection Power of Christ Jesus that it is inside of you. You are a Christian because Jesus died, and He rose again. The power that caused Jesus to be raised from the dead is the same power that raised you from your death because you were dead in the world. You were not alive to Jesus Christ, you were dead, but it raised your spirit man to new life. It’s that same power that when your body dies, your spirit goes immediately into heavenly eternity, and you have life with Jesus for eternity. The same power that heals people, it’s the same power that is available to you to change your financial circumstances. It’s the power of God that changes everything. That power didn’t just manifest itself in raising Jesus from the dead; that power was always in Him, the Father, eternally. It just showed up that way to raise Jesus from the dead. That same power is in you. That same power is in you. Hallelujah.
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have residence in your body by means of your spirit man. So, if you are a born again Christian—if you have said, “I make Jesus the Lord and Savior of my life. I invite Him to be my Lord and Savior, and I recognise that I need Him as my Savior, and you have made Jesus the Lord and Savior of your life, then the same power lives inside of you. There is not just a little bit of Jesus that lives in you. Or a little bit of the Holy Spirit that lives in you. Or a little bit of the Father. In your spirit, your spirit man is completely a new creature. It is the person of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who lives in your spirit. You are a new creature. It didn’t cause my hair to start growing out again, so what part of me is a new creature? My spirit-man.
So, there are a few things that must change; my body is going to change whether I like it or not because God has given me a set amount of time and a set amount of years on the earth, and He called me to be on the earth at this time, and here I am because He purposed me to be here. He predestined me. He foreordained and called me before He even created the earth. I was in Him, and He said at this time and place I would be here to do what He’s asking me to do now.
I have a set time on the earth to do what He’s asked me to do, and the time will come when I will have no more energy left in my body, or the time will come for my body to lay down; let’s rather put it that way. It will be time for my body to lay down and no longer contain my spirit and my soul, and that will be the time when my spirit and my soul will go into eternity. It will be present before God, and it will represent all of what I did on the earth and eternally what my spirit-man and my soul will carry before the Father will either be burnt up like hay and stubble; or it will be presented to Him with gold and silver and precious stones, depending on what I did while I was on the earth.
That is a truth. That’s not just a fact. It’s the truth. So, it doesn’t matter if you’ve spent seventy years of your life following your own purpose and not considering God as part of designing your life; you know now. God is the God of redeeming time, and He can cause you to do in seven years of your seventy-year life to redeem all of the previous seventy years. He really can, by His power. By resurrection power. Hallelujah.
Well, how is that possible? Well, I don’t know all the things that God can do, but for example, He might cause you to just pray in the spirit or pray for God to raise up men and women on the earth that would preach the name of Jesus. There was someone who prayed Billy Graham into the earth like that and Billy Graham into his ministry like that. That person then, you could possibly say, redeemed all of their time on the earth through Billy Grahams’ ministry. Then all of the people that were touched later.
There’s a lot of things that God can do to redeem your assignment and your purpose for being on the earth. So, I just want to read to you. I’ve got quite a lot to get through today, but I just want to read to you our foundation scripture, which is in Colossians 3 verse 1 to 4 in The Passion Translation, 1 Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honor, and authority! 2Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm. ³ Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, and now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ. ⁴ And as Christ himself is seen for who he really is, who you really are will also be revealed, for you are now one with him in his glory! (Colossians 3:1-4 TPT) Hallelujah.⁴You are now one with him in his glory! You are now one with Him in His glory.
Last week I was talking about the concept of oneness, and next week I’ll get back to that, and we’re going to have a dramatic service next week; let’s just put it that way. You will see some drama on the stage next week. In the most unexpected way, the Lord has given me a visualisation of how I can explain to you, and you might see what this means, but I have been speaking to you about the oneness. That we don’t have a full concept of, unless it’s the Holy Spirit that helps you understand it, we don’t have a full understanding of oneness, because the oneness that you experience is the oneness with yourself, so you have a desire, you have a thought, you have an action, and it all flows inter-connected. It’s so in oneness with yourself that however you choose to develop your oneness, you become used to the oneness that is yourself.
But, then when you have to take your oneness and connect it to someone else’s oneness, that concept is rather challenging and difficult for people to understand, and it’s the reason why marriages and relationships have so many challenges; because it’s the concept of oneness that gets in the way. I, as one, want what I want as one, and you as one, want what you want as one and where we come together and we can’t create a oneness in our together oneness’s, I know it’s not good English, but bear with me.
So, that margin there, of where we come together and we try to create a oneness, that’s where we are always challenged with each other. So, the way to have a oneness in relationship, and the same happens with finances, the same happens in all aspects of our lives, is that when anything is busy developing or happening in your life, it’s your oneness that is viewing a circumstance, or viewing a person, or viewing a situation that you’ve come into contact with; and you’re always looking for the place where you can either withdraw back into your oneness and be comfortable and satisfied, or go out of your oneness and get into agreement with, and have the power and the satisfaction and the joy of the oneness of where you come together. Hallelujah.
It’s why the power of agreement; because agreement is a point of oneness. Last week I read to you the scripture from 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 18: 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit. (1 Peter 3:18 NKJV)
So, I talked about the fact that He died to bring me to God. Remember? I said to you, and I had you all say this together with me: Bring me to God. He brought me to God. Right? In other words, He suffered, so there’s no barrier between you and God. Nothing. There is no barrier. Whatever barrier happens to be between you and God is either a barrier of deception, or it’s a barrier of self-choice; that oneness that you choose to be one with you, rather than one with God.
So, wherever you choose, always, to be one with yourself without including God in your oneness, or making God the point of your oneness; the point of your oneness, that is your own self-oneness, is always going to be the place where you fall short.
That’s where we have our challenges in life. It’s where we don’t have oneness with God, we have oneness with ourselves, and He’s not the focal point or the foundation of oneness. His desire for you is to be with God and to be in God, and for His desires to be your desires. When His desires become your desires, that oneness is unstoppable, and it literally can change and move anything that is in your life, anything and everything. There is nothing that can stop you from getting done what God wants you to get done.
The Passion Translation puts it this way, 18 Christ suffered and died for sins once and for all—the innocent for the guilty—to bring you near to God by his body being put to death. (1 Peter 3:18 TPT) He wants you to be near to God. If you remember, I said, He wants you every day for you to breathe and live, and you should have a singular focus, that should be to draw near to God. Not to focus on anything else. You should have a singular focus of drawing near to God. In a moment in this service, I’m going to show you again with some drama. I’m going to show you how this is going to operate and how this functions practically in your life. So, stay connected with me. Stay in oneness with my message today. Alright, don’t allow your mind to go to too many different places. Try and stay connected to me. Because in this message the Holy Spirit is going reveal to you through some of the practical things He’s given me to show you today.
If you remember, I read to you from John chapter 14. I’m only going to focus on verse 10. He talks about, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” It’s that message. It’s that passage of scripture. But verse 10 says, 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I speak to you aren’t mere words. I don’t just make them up on my own. The Father who resides in me crafts each word into a divine act. (John 14:10 MSG) I really like that. In other words, I’m not just speaking any kind of word; every word that I speak is crafted as a divine word. That will tell you that Jesus didn’t live casually or just speak words for the sake of making people comfortable around Him socially. When He spoke, He always spoke what God was telling Him to speak. If God was telling Him to speak and say something to make people feel comfortable socially, then those were God’s words that crafted Him, crafted in Him to make them feel that way. That did happen from time to time, but He didn’t just speak it for the sake of speaking. Some of you might say, well, that’s a fairly boring place to live. It’s a very powerful place to live.
I’m going to read this in a different translation in the Amplified, and it reads the same verse, 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me? oneness. What I’m telling you I do not say on My own authority and of My own accord; but the Father Who lives continually in Me. Continually, in other words, if something’s continuous, there is no break. Father who lives continuing in Me does (His) works (His own miracles, deeds of power.) (John 14:10 AMPC) So, Jesus is saying, it’s not Me who does the deeds of power, it’s the Father who lives in Me that’s doing His deeds, I’m just the vessel. I even said to you last week, whatever I stand up here, and whatever I do up here, I am the vessel, and I do the best that I can to prepare myself to be a proper vessel—used by Him, so that the message that He wants to speak to you and how He wants to touch you, gets through to you.
It’s been many, many, many times. It happens every week, just about actually, that people, people come and say to me, “Pastor John, that message, you don’t know just how close and how accurate that message was for me.” And sometimes they actually think it has happened occasionally, that they’ve had meetings with Pastor Christi in the week or someone else in the week, and they’ve spoken their stuff out, and they think that Pastor Christi has spoken to me and that I’m in the pulpit actually speaking, what she told me about them. When none of that’s happened, I’m just before God, and what God gives me a message, and He ministers it to you in such a way that it’s so relevant to you that actually you think Pastor Christi has been talking about you, to me. Sy’s ‘n klikbek. You know what I’m saying? She’s been telling him everything I said in the meeting.
No, no, not a word. Most of the time, 99% of the time, I’ll preach a message, and then Pastor Christi will come to me and say, “Pastor John, you don’t know what happened last week. I talked to so and so, and you said everything I said to them in private in the Church. You couldn’t know how much you said on Sunday that actually, we talked about in private?” I said, “No, I don’t. I didn’t know that you had that conversation.” Well, that’s the Holy Spirit because I’m just the vessel. He’s ministering His words to you. Hallelujah.
10 The Father who resides in Me crafts each word into a divine act. (John 14:10 MSG) Hey, I tell you what, if you begin to live your life; so united to the words that you speak, that everything you speak is a divine craft. I’m crafting a divine thing in front of me right now. I spoke to you about relationship and said that it comes from two Latin words, and it actually means to produce, to produce. The word relates, also in a different dictionary, to relate one’s self or to vent thoughts in words. I also said to you that the best definition that I could find about relationships or relating is a state of connectedness between people. Praise the Lord.
John chapter 14, verse 23, says, 23 Jesus replied, “Loving me empowers you to obey my word. (John 14:23 TPT) So, it starts in your heart that you would love, love Jesus. In recent months, I have found myself waking up in the mornings, and my words that have been coming out of my mouth have been along these lines. “My Father, my loving, Heavenly Father, my Father, you are so precious and so real, and so wonderful to me, my Father”. It’s been a really amazing thing that the Holy Spirit has been guiding me and leading me that I would speak the words that Jesus prayed, our Father, which art in Heaven, glory, most magnificent is Your name. You know, and I found myself in the first minutes, the first part of my time with the Lord speaking words to the Father. Because I find that as I speak those words, the connectedness between Him and me is by the Holy Spirit, He empowers me to connect, reach into the love of God, which is in my spirit man, to become an expression of my soul. It brings me into His presence, and I understand and recognise His presence because I honour Him as my first part of the day.
23 And my Father will love you so deeply that we will come to you and make you our dwelling place. (John 14:23 TPT) This is the desire of the Father. Can I read it to you again? 23 Jesus replied, “Loving me empowers you to obey my word. And my Father will love you so deeply that we will come to you and make you our dwelling place. (John 14:23 TPT) This is an amazing place to be, make you our dwelling place.
Verse 27 says, 27 “I leave the gift of peace with you—my peace. Not the kind of fragile peace given by the world, but my perfect peace. Don’t yield to fear or be troubled in your hearts—instead, be courageous! (John 14:27 TPT)
Ephesians chapter 3 verse 14 in the New King James Version says, 14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family that’s you, if you’re born again, you are in the family of God, 15from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. (Ephesians 3:14-15 NKJV) You are named because Jesus is our Lord and Savior. We are named as children of the Most High God. Wow, I pray that this becomes a revelation in your heart, that you are a child of the Most High God.
I would like to; I’m going to show you my graphic in a minute to be able to speak to this, both today and next week. I want to just explain to you that every being that has been born onto the earth—now there’s a lot of intellectuals that will want to try and focus or shift the attention of how you were born into the earth, rather than the fact that you were born into the earth. So, the how is the reason why people permit abortion because they say, if someone is conceived a child, and it was conceived out of lust, if it was conceived out of violence or rape, or if it was conceived outside of the time of your life where your will or your circumstances would permit you to have the ideal environment to raise a child. If you conceive a child at that time, you can abort that child because the how and the timing is not conducive to a child coming into the earth.
So, people focus on the how and the timing rather than on the why. It’s convenient for them to do that because it’s convenient to abort a spirit they don’t believe was breathed by God in heaven. So, they say, “How can a spirit be brought into the earth through violence, for example, rape? How can a spirit be done? Let me tell you; God is not a God who is confused. The act of how is not the reason why God wants or doesn’t want someone in the earth. When the time comes for Him to breathe a being into the earth, if that’s the act that brings the being into the earth, then that’s the time that God will bring that being into the earth. But people say because of the how, the why or the purpose of their birth, theïr being born cannot be significant. Sometimes it’s the people that’s been born into the earth in the most extreme hardships that go on and become and do tremendous and great things in the earth. So, that’s not an excuse.
They want to take it away from the fact that right before anything was ever formed in eternity, God already had you in His mind. He already knew you, and He already knew what time of the eternal timetable and the earth timetable, what is the time to insert you into the earth because He needed you. Your gift, talent, calling, and everything He needed you in the earth, right now. To make it personal, you, right now, right here. You’re not here by mistake. He wanted you to be here. So, time comes from eternity into the earth for this very brief time and while He’s here wants you to understand oneness. He wants you to understand the oneness with Him, the oneness with Christ, the oneness of the body, so that you for this period of time, while you’re alive, can represent the power of Christ and who Christ is in the body of Christ. You can represent Him to all the principalities and all of the creatures in the universe. So, when you go, there are others that will come, that will continue that and continue that because He wants you to be the representation of Jesus to the ages that have been passed and the ages to come. So, we don’t serve a small-minded God. Hallelujah.
I’d love to have a conversation with you about the multi-dimensions of God and time, and that if God who is light and therefore operates everything in His realm at light, people will tell you that if you could travel at the speed of light, you could literally live in a thousand years as one day. Mathematically, it’s been proven. So, if God lives in light, then He lives in a life form that is not measured by time. So, eternity has no boundaries of time. Eternity is Him in light, in any moment of time, in any moment of being He chooses to be present, He is present in that moment of time, in that moment, in this space of His being wherever and whenever and whatever, because time isn’t His limiting factor. He can live on so many dimensions of God Himself in so many different places in so many different spaces in so many different ways because He is completely outside of the form of time.
We can only think in a three-dimensional linear component, but God has so many dimensions to Himself outside of where we are that we think we can understand Him. He expects us to have faith that He, who He is, has got a plan and purpose for us and that where we are, He can both look at you in your moment where you are right now, and He says, “I can be in where you’ve been ten years before you are here.” “Well, how can you be back ten years ago?” “I can be back where you were ten years ago because, in Me, there is no beginning and end.” Come on now. Maybe I’m blowing your mind a little bit. But I want you to understand that there is no beginning and ending in God, and there’s no shadow of turning in God, and everything that ever was and everything that is and everything that ever will be is all in Him. So, He’s always ever-present at every place forever. So, it doesn’t matter that you think you are fifty years old. He’s also present with you still when you were just born.
How is that possible? Well, because time is not something that He’s living in. He’s living in real-time, all-time with Himself, with you. So, therefore, when you give your heart to Him, and you say, “God, I recognise that I have a purpose and a plan.” What He does is, He says, “Okay, okay, I can redeem time for you. Trust me.” How are you going to do that? “I’m going to start to do things that I know that you did. I’ve forgiven you. So, I don’t remember all the sins, but I remember the decisions you made, where you served Me and the seeds that you sowed in your service to Me, and I’m going to use all of those back in your time to create a harvest in this time and in the time to come. That will redeem the seeds that you sowed in that time.
There were people that were praying for you before you knew they were praying for you because I led them to intercede for things they didn’t even know they were praying for in the spirit.” How be it, he that prays in the spirit prays out the things of the Spirit, and you cannot understand them in your natural mind, but you pray them out by the Holy Spirit, you pray the perfect will.
So, I’ve had people praying for you before you were even born, praying by the Spirit, they didn’t know what they were praying for, but I used those prayers for you. I use that seed, and your seed and the things that you gave to Me, and I will bring you back onto your ancient path, onto your ancient assignment, onto the purpose why you were born, and I can go back and make all the good decisions that you made and all the seeds that were sown for you. Just give Me your heart and your faith, now. You can have that for free today.
So, Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15 says, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things. We may grow up, grow up, hey, grow up. But I’m, I’m an adult, and I’m old. You can still grow up. That means, grow up! So, even though I consider myself and based on the Word of God, the Word considers me to be a spiritually mature being because I have not just natural knowledge, head knowledge, understanding of the ways of the spirit, but I have an understanding of revelation of the ways of God, and because of the way that I have walked with God, God would say I am an elder in the Church. I’m a teacher, not just because of my calling, but also because of my walk. Hello. But I can still grow up. I have still got growing to do, because all things, is a lot of things. Right?
…into Him, all things, into Him, who is the head—Christ—16 from whom the whole body, that’s all of us, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies. (Ephesians 4:15-16 NKJV) Can you please do me a favour and raise just one hand, any hand. Please raise one hand, any hand and say, “When God says He’s talking about my joint, He’s not talking about this joint. [Pastor John raises his hand and waves it] Come on, say, “It’s not this joint.” Congregation says, ‘ It’s not this joint.’ He’s talking about me being joined.
So, if God’s called you, let’s just say He’s called you with a gift, and He’s called you to be in the earth at this time, then He’s called you also to be in the body of Christ at this time. So, then you can’t be joined to the whole universal Church, of course, you are, that too, in Christ, but you can’t have a relationship with the whole universal Church. So, when you raised your hand, hey, when you raised your hand, was your hand slapping your leg? I dare you to take the same hand and keep it up there and slap your leg at the same time. Come on, let’s see if anybody can do a Houdini here today. No, it’s not possible for your hand to be here and there at the same time. Right.
So, people who have an argument say, I’m part of the universal Church, so I can stay home and watch TV and grow. I can watch and do this, and I can’t be joined. What you’re saying is that I’m disconnecting my arm, my hand or my forearm from my body, and I’m going to let it roam away around there. So that it can go where it wants to go, you can’t do that. It’s impossible. It’s got to be joined somewhere. You got to be joined to the Church, in a Church. When God sets you in a Church, it means He wants you to be joined there for a reason because He wants this part of the arm to be connected to that part of the arm, and you’re it.
Don’t think I’ll go and be part of the Church. I don’t like this church, I’d don’t like …well just cut your arm off, see how well you do. I promise you; you are going to bleed a lot. You’re going to bleed, a lot, a lot. This part of the body becomes very painful, and what happens is that you can still save this part of the body because you have to have surgery here, cauterisation here. It means you got to stop the blood flowing to the rest of the joint that’s now been cut, but this joint has no more blood supply. It doesn’t matter that your joint is saved. Your joint can’t do anything that you’re supposed to do in Christ. It becomes lifeless, bloodless, dead tissue. Eventually, it will corrupt and decay, which is why so many Christians are out there in the world with the aroma of death around them, because they live like the world because they can’t live any other way because they’ve disconnected from the Church. So they live in a corrupted, decayed position of living in the world.
I’m preaching so well this morning, and you might as well say, “Amen, praise Jesus.” That’s why it’s important that you got to be connected to the Church. I’ll tell you what happens is that sometimes people get dislocated from the body that they are connected to. A dislocation is not an irreparable condition. It just means that it’s painful and it’s out of joint. You can live with that pain for as long as you are willing to put up with the pain, but you should go to someone that can help you be located instead of dislocated. The minute you stop the dislocation you function normally. At least you didn’t go as far as bleeding. Hallelujah.
So, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:16 NKJV) Whatever you’re doing, you’re helping me to grow, because you bring love and you bring stuff to the body that I need. You and me, we’re connected. Your life helps me live and my life helps you live. We stay healthy and alive. The person sitting next to you, go like this, [Pastor John gestures that you must stick your elbows out to your sides] same-a-ting. So say it, Same-a-ting. We keep each other alive.
“Ahh, but you offended me, I don’t like you. You said something I didn’t like.” Okay, be dislocated for a bit, it’s painful. I know, but just get located again. Let someone come and fix it. Get a Holy Ghost doctor, you know, it’s your friend. It’s the brother that’s going to tell you the truth that says: “Hey, you’re dislocated, you’re dislocated, you’re not properly connected here. Your joint is hanging.” It’s your brother that can see it because he’s right next to you. He hears your words, and he sees your pain, and because he is feeling the pain because you got pain that you bring to him. Eish, this is so good on so many different levels. Can I have my first slide, please?
Okay, I want to just show you that, this man here is a being, and I’ve put the heart there, because I’m wanting you to see that, this man’s spirit man and his soul and his will, is inside of his body. Remove body, that heart, that spirit man goes to be with God, or hell, separated for God eternally from God eternally, if Jesus is not his Lord and Savior.
Okay, next slide, please. I know you can’t read this too well, don’t worry, I’ve got another slide coming, that actually will show you everything that’s in this heart. But I’m wanting to show you that the next slide you’re going to see, that everything that you are living with, comes from there. It’s the reason why the book of Proverbs says, Guard your heart because out of it flows all the issues of life. So everything that you are living with, comes out of the inner being of your heart.
I’m just going to skip right to the next slide. I wanted… the previous slide was just to show you that what I’m talking about is in your heart. Okay, so this is the slide that I want to talk to you about. God is the centre of you. He is in the middle of your heart. Right? Should be. He is. Whether you let Him be or not, He is, if you’re born again. Who and how is God going to touch your life? It’s on the board… He is going to touch you through the Church. I’m not trying to confuse you here. I’m just trying to make it simple, because when you live in oneness with yourself as a Christian, what you tend to want to say is: Inside of me is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, I don’t need anybody outside of what’s in me, but God has already said, and I’ve just read to you, that you cannot grow up into all things unless you are part of the whole body that’s knit together. So, you can’t actually develop yourself anywhere, any place, unless it’s through the Church.
Most people will talk to you about the Church as being a congregation of people, where Church people, Christians, congregate. Churches, a lot of Churches around the world are measuring their effectiveness by how many people congregate together, or how many people they can touch with a message as a congregation. But that’s not what the Church is. The Church is a body that God has put together, that is actually referred to in the New Testament by Jesus, as the Ecclesia and the Ecclesia, is His Government on the earth, and He intends to, it’s His desire too, it’s His purpose that you and us together, govern the things that touch our world together.
I’m talking about relationships because that means I can’t govern my world without you helping me govern because you are part of the Ecclesia. I need your gift, I need your calling, I need your devotion to Him, I need all of your things that are inside of you, to complete me to help me grow. My growth and your growth allows God to have a whole body that He can call to say, you need each other to govern your environment and to govern your future. If you think you can govern your future without the Church, the Ecclesia, then you’re just saying, “God called me to myself, for myself, by myself, with myself,” and like I said, you’re dislocated. Maybe you’re even dismembered? Disjointed, dismembered. I dare you to go, just go into an electronic Bible, you can go online to an electronic Bible, and you can find a concordance and go and look up any word in the Bible, on online Bible, if you don’t, if you don’t have access to one and go and look up decay, corruption, death, and find out if there’s anything in your life that you can find that says you can live life, without the body of Christ. Go find out and see what happens to you when you become disjointed, dismembered. I follow my own purpose for my own self, for my own cause for my own reasons, and my talent and my gift has allowed me to be doing whatever I choose to do.
I wonder what would happen – just hear me out now for a moment – I wonder what would happen if Elon Musk was born again, and he realized that his calling was to the body of Christ, and not to Wall Street. I wonder what would happen if he could transition, which is part of the reason why the Bible says it’s more difficult for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to enter into the eye of the needle.
It’s not impossible for a rich man to be born again because a rich man that’s born again, sees himself as part of the congregation, part of the Church, but being part of the Church still allows me to be in oneness with myself and not worry about you. You are also part of the Church, you’re supposed to do what you’re supposed to do with Jesus, and I must do what I’m supposed to be doing with Jesus, carry on, I can be one with myself.
It only makes me responsible for me and what I must do. God never called you to be only responsible for you. I’ve got news for you, God called you to be responsible for everybody that’s in this auditorium today. If you are part of this Church, and you’re called here, and if you’re listening to this message, and you don’t have a Church to go to, this is the one you’re supposed to be at. How do I know that? Because you’re here, and you’re hearing this message that you won’t hear in most other Churches.
If you’re here today, or you’re watching online, then God wants you to be part of what we’re doing, because if you’re here if you’re listening to us, then you should be in Church. For those people that are in Joburg that are inconvenienced to come here, I say, “Stick to your conviction, not your convenience.”
Doctor du Toit, please would you tell me how many years you’ve been travelling with your family every Sunday to Church from your farm?
Dr du Toit answers: Since 2010.
Pastor John: Since 2010, that means about eleven years. Doctor Zelda du Toit, would you agree, concur with his timing more or less? I’m just making sure the doctors are in agreement with each other. So, how old are you Yatteer?
Yatteer: Fourteen
Pastor John: So, that means you started travelling to Church every Sunday when your Yatteer was three. Nikao, how old are you?
Nikao: Fifteen
Pastor John: So he was four. How far did you travel? How far do you travel every Sunday?
Doctor du Toit: One way is 120 kilometres.
Pastor John: One way is 120 kilometres. You’ve been doing that for eleven years? That’s because you received the revelation that you needed to be in the Body. Even though you have weekly prayer meetings on your farm, right? With us, because we understand that actually to come and be here, twice a week, at night, it’s a bit challenging with kids doing school and all that kind of stuff. But you know you have to be part of this Body. So, you come here every week because you have to be in this Body. Right? That’s been happening for eleven years. How old are you?
Khayzek: Eighteen.
Pastor John: And Tishri?
Doctor du Toit: Twenty.
Pastor John: She’s twenty already? I remember doing her school-talk, end-of-year graduate. How was she when I did that, seven or something?
Doctor du Toit: Eight
Pastor John: I went all the way to Morgenzon to do that graduation speech. Eight years old. There are, one of the things she had, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” “I want to be a boer, I want to be a boer.” Now twenty-year-old Tishri, she’s following the plan and purpose of God for her life. She’s here because they made the decision to do all these years, and by the way, there’s no end in sight for them, unless they end up buying a house here and living here on weekends which is a possibility because more of their kids are coming here. Hello.
If you choose your life because of convenience, rather than conviction, then anything will stop you from coming to where God needs you to be. Then, you’re no longer taking responsibility for someone else’s growth, you’re only taking responsibility for your oneness. God is saying, “Never let your convenience be the reason for why you do anything; you let your conviction be the thing that drives your life.”
That same conviction that you have with your calling, with your gifting and with your talent that causes you to get stuff done in life, use that because the Church is everything you’ve got. Oh, but no Pastor, John. I’ve got an assignment, I’ve got finances, I’ve got relationships, I’ve got a career I’ve got to follow. I’ve got to have some rest and recreation, and I’ve got to do health and fitness or eating whatever you want to put in that category. I’ve just put a few categories there to give us kind of a holistic thing.
Oh, hold on a minute. Hold on a minute. I just want to, will you guys excuse me for a minute here? This is really just quite important here. [Pastor John phoning Pastor Sharon] Answer it.
Pastor Sharon: “Hi, John.”
Pastor John: Hi, Babe. Listen, this is really important. On our way home I need you to please stop and buy milk and bread and we ran out of yoghurt. There’s a few things we need at home and maybe something you know some cheese or some stuff. Can you do that on the way home?
Pastor Sharon: Yah. Okay, I’ll do that.
Pastor John: All right. Okay, thank you. Are you happy about this phone call I just made? [Congregation laughing.] Wait, I’ve got another phone call I gotta make.
[Phone ringing]
Pastor John: Hay Matt. You know that microphone thing that we’ve been talking about for the Church here. Matt, can you hear me?
Matt: Yes, yes.
Pastor John: Okay. You know, we need at least two or three different models that we can try, demo equipment that we can try, some stuff and I want to top range one, a midrange one and maybe something that’s you know, a couple of options we talked about. Can we try and arrange it for next week?
Matt: Okay. Yes.
Pastor John: Okay, cool. Thanks. Cheers.
Matt: Thanks, Pastor John.
Pastor John: Are you happy about those phone calls I just made? Hey, not really, hey? Why, because what am I doing right now? I’m in the sweet spot of my assignment. My calling is working for everybody right now, but I have many issues. So if you see this as a wheel, and the wheel that’s turning, my walk with God, and our walking, and our relationship with God is like a turning wheel. There’s a part of my day that touches my career, there’s a part of my day that is touching my assignment, there’s a part of my day that’s touching my eating, my health, and my wellness. There’s a part of my day that’s connecting with other relationships.
So, when God is working in your life, He’s always working through the Church, to every part of your life, but in this moment, right now, I’m on a pressure point. On that wheel there. What am I busy doing? I’m on assignment, right? If you turn that wheel and it was a turning wheel, then suddenly all of the weight of the wheel, call it a car’s wheel, all of the weight is on that moment, on that place. I should not be making phone calls to people to go shopping for me and microphones, because right now my focus is here.
When you’re walking with God, you have this thing that’s going on in your life, the whole time. Now when I walk out of here, if you were in my office before the Church service started, you will know that a cycling event happened yesterday and a cyclist was being naughty on the road. Unfortunately, it cost him his life and he was killed on his bicycle yesterday. We’re being part of the cycling community, we have been asked to be present today for a memorial ride with our bicycles in remembrance of him by the family, and so we are going to do that. So, in the back there, I was talking about some of those arrangements that are happening this afternoon.
Even though I’m focused on my assignment, as the wheel is turning, there is a component where there’s a part that is touching on some of the relationship issues, and some of the other issues as the wheel is turning, but the fullness of my assignment is about to kick in. I can’t come here and start making phone calls on lunch and dinner and stuff. Right now, this is what I’ve got to be doing. So, that’s how God works with you and me in all of our life. He might be in a moment where He says to you, “John, I know you’re shopping in Woolworths, but I need you to be aware of my presence right now. There’s a man standing next to you, tell him that I love him and that I’m taking care of him. No matter what.”
Ah, no Lord, I’ve got no time for you. “You are my ecclesia, I need to govern in his life because his life is about to be threatened by the enemy. I need to govern in his life, and you, the Church must function here.” Hey? I might be running on my bicycle. And the Lord may tell me to stop right now. “Stop, John, stop.” You know what? I’m riding on my bicycle, “Hey, guys, can we just stop for a minute?” “Sure, sure, what’s going on Pastor John?” “No, I just need to stop.” “What’s going on?” “Argh no, I just need a rest now. I’m going to just take a drink of water…” My mind starts to work now, “I’m just going to wait and get myself ready to ride up the hill.”
But in my spirit man, the Lord said to stop. What’s He doing? He’s taking me from my rest and recreation and suddenly He’s saying, “The world system is about to bring some interference into your life that is going to change everything. Stop. If you stop, I protect you.” Or somebody else comes up to me and says, “Pastor John, can we just stop for a minute?” “What’s happening?” “I’m just tired.” “No, no, let’s push. Let’s push.” Now if that’s a natural thing of fitness, let’s say we must push to get fit. No problem. But is there something else that’s going on and it’s time to just stop? Can you explain it?
No. Because the centre of God, the local Church, the local body is all at work. So, here’s what happens. As you become more aware of your responsibility to other people, God will make you more aware of His responsibility that He has towards you, and as you become responsible for others, He’s responsibility to you begins to show up all the time, in little ways, like “Stop.” Hallelujah.
I’ve shared this example with you before. I’m nearly finished here; I’ve got one more scripture to read to you. I’ve shared this example with you. I was riding back from a Church service here with brother Joe McCroskey, and we were riding back to Johannesburg. He was going to go and stay in the hotel there and we were riding back, and it was after a night service. So, let’s say it was about 21h30, 22h00 o’clock at night, and we were heading on our way back to Johannesburg, and I’m riding in the right-hand lane.
Well, everybody will know that on the road, on the Johannesburg Witbank Road via Benoni, which I think is called the R12. That road has a lot of coal trucks on it. So, a safe place to ride, more safe than the left-hand side is in the right-hand lane. We’re riding in the right the right-hand lane, and without explanation, just an instinct in me. I just moved into the left-hand lane. Not a car sight, not behind me, not in front of me; not a car in sight. I just moved over to the left-hand lane. About a kilometre later, a truck stopped, no triangles, no visibility, no lights, coal truck, black everywhere. Anything that would be a reflector wasn’t even showing on that truck. At 120 there is no way that I was stopping, that I would hit that truck. Brother Joe and I, unlikely would be around today.
Tried to stop three assignments, Brother Jerry’s, Brother Joe and mine, and potentially yours because there was a stopped truck in the middle of the road. When we went past that truck, Brother Joe and I both immediately, instinctively, by the Spirit of God began to praise God—that I moved over to the left-hand lane.
Joe said, “John if you hadn’t moved over, that can only be… that is the leading of the Holy Spirit.” And we began to praise Him and worship Him and give Him thanks. Because right there, he saved our lives like that. “How is it that you can be so sensitive to the Holy Spirit?” because I’m responsible for you. I take my responsibility for you, not just because I’m the watchman of your soul, but I’m also a member of this body. Hallelujah.
So, you have to be careful that when you’re doing a certain thing in life that you don’t mix your assignments because even though I have a relationship with Pastor Sharon, and a strong connectedness to her, there’s a moment for me to be talking to her about buying stuff at Woolworths. Even though Matt is on assignment with me doing this stuff together, there’s a moment we have to talk about that. I can’t mix up the times of things, because then I’m confusing everybody.
What happens if that became my regular behaviour pattern, that every time I came into Church here and I stood in the pulpit, you suddenly see me phoning people, making other things happen? What are you going to think about my assignment? Come on now. I mean, the most basic thing you’re going to say is, “Pastor John is a bit confused about why he’s here and why we’re here.” Right?
You might give me a little bit of latitude for a while that, “He’s a bit confused. Maybe he’ll come right.” Yes? But if I keep doing that, then eventually you are going to say, “Hmm, I’m not going to waste my time going to that Church because he spends half his service dealing with issues he should have done somewhere else.” Right? Then I would say to you also, “You should go,” because that’s not the way you conduct yourself when you’re focused on what God needs you to be focused on. Hallelujah.
Let me tell you, I will talk a little bit about relationships, because it’s how you relate, how you connect with one another, and how you see the Church and your connectedness to the Church, with your calling and with your gifting that actually you become a whole person. You cannot grow into the fullness of your life and the wholeness of your life without the Church, without the relationships, your relatedness to the Church, both with your person, your walk with God and with your gift and with your calling and with your talent. Your wholeness, your fullness, the strength of your life, actually, all comes out of your walk with God and your connectedness – not just to the congregation, but to the understanding that together we have a lot of stuff to do.
I’m going to finish my message now with this passage of Scripture that I’m going to read to you. Now, remember next week… what I did with the phone calls here is small drama compared to what I’m going to show you next week. Next week it’s going to be high drama.
You, people from Joburg that are not here today and other places, for convenience’s sake or whatever other plans that you made that are more important than coming to Church—change them. Get here. Ja. Oh, for a few months now or a few weeks we’re inconvenienced because we’re building an auditorium there… So sorry. The farmers here have been inconvenienced for 11 years. You can’t be inconvenienced for a couple of months? “No, but you don’t know how busy or how important…” Anything more important than this Ecclesia moment? Do you want to really tell me that what you’re doing out there is more important than this Ecclesia, this connectedness? You’re just telling me; I want to keep dislocating my finger.
Anybody that’s had a dislocation will tell you it’s not fun. Unless you do it so much that you can almost do it at will and your joint becomes hardened to it, in which case you’re in a worse position because you don’t even know that you’re dislocating anymore. Until you try and put some strength there and you find; “Oh, I’m dislocated,” and that moment could be a life-altering moment or a life strategic moment when you need the strength of your thumb and suddenly it’s dislocated and you didn’t know that you were dislocated. It’s even worse. It’s not a good sign if you’ve become comfortable with dislocation. It’s a bad sign. It’s not healthy for you.
Come on, all of you should say right now, “We still love you, Pastor John,” because what I’m telling you is the truth and I would not be following God if I wasn’t here, right now, in this moment, at this beginning of 2022, where God is about to and has already started opening His hand, He’s giving us the extended hand of God’s favour towards us and He’s asking us to go big and bold in 2022 more than we were last year because He’s doing something powerful in this Ecclesia to govern, to show all of the beings in the universe that this Ecclesia knows who they are in Christ Jesus and they know who they are together in Christ Jesus and right now, because of this message, right now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and all the great cloud of witnesses are saying, “Watch this Church. This message in this Church, this is what it’s all about.” Hallelujah.
Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17. I finish with this, 17 This I say, therefore, after everything I’ve preached today, I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. (Ephesians 4:17 NKJV) So, don’t walk like all of the other Witbankers walk. Don’t walk like all the other Joburgers walk. Don’t walk like all of your friends walk. How do they walk? Well, they make decisions to go on holiday whenever they want to, they make decisions how they want to make decisions, for themselves, by themselves, with themselves, that’s most convenient for them. They have no conviction about how they live their lives. Their only conviction is the oneness of themselves. Don’t walk like that.
17 …in the futility of their mind, 18 having their understanding darkened. How? By oneness with themselves and not connectedness to the Church. …being alienated from the life of God. Come on, I’ve just got through the whole length telling you that even Christians who are born again, maybe even Spirit-filled-Christians, can cut off themselves from the Church—alienate themselves from what they’re supposed to be in God. The best scenario is a dislocation. The worst thing is a dismemberment. 18 …because of the ignorance that is in them… because they don’t see what God has actually called them to be and how mighty and majestic and awesome God is and can be in you and wants to be through you. 18 …because of the blindness of their heart; (Ephesians 4:17-18 NKJV) because what your heart chooses, your mind justifies. It’s not an intellectual process, it’s a choice of—I do want God or I don’t want God, I want what God wants for my life or I don’t. It’s a heart choice, and then your mind gets involved to justify what you choose in your heart because out of your heart flow all the issues of life.
18 …because of the blindness of their heart; 19 who, being past feeling, they don’t even feel for the fact that they don’t do things for the Church anymore, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. (Ephesians 4:18-19 NKJV) You might get away with lewdness, which otherwise is lasciviousness or just an immoral way of living. You might get away with that and you might say work of uncleanness, but a lot of stuff come in the category of uncleanness, but almost certainly most of us are going to get caught with the last one which is greediness because you don’t have to have a lot of money to be greedy for it. In fact, you can have a very little bit of money and be very greedy for money.
20 But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. (Ephesians 4:20-22 NKJV) Come on. Talk to me for a minute. If you live a lifestyle of convenience, that you see the Church as a congregation, rather than a lifestyle of conviction, where you see the Church as an Ecclesia where God wants to you to rule and show His government on the earth—that is a former man and God is saying; I want you to put off the former man and his former conduct that grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.
Do you know what lust is? It’s an imitation of love. So, what you have as a feeling of love is also very closely aligned to a feeling of lust. Most of the world thinks love is lust. It’s so close. Because that’s the deception of the world. “I really want to kiss you.” “Why do you want to kiss me so bad?” “Because I love you.” “Oh, you love me? So, you want to kiss me? What about maybe I lust you, so I want to kiss you?” “No, no, no, no, no, no I don’t lust you.” “Really?” “I can’t wait to kiss you.” I’m being very basic about this. Eina! Let me just, just, by the way, you don’t have to be single to have that, you can be married. It’s quiet in here now. I’m going to move on from that.
From the deceitful lusts, it covers a lot of stuff, not just what I’ve described here. It covers a lot of stuff. Lust for cars, lust for houses, lust for a way of life, lust for other things. The deceitfulness of the lusts that consume your life. So, put away all that stuff, 23 …and be renewed in the spirit of your mind… Where’s that? In the spirit of your mind. 24 And that you put on the new man, which was created according to God, in true righteousness, and holiness. (Ephesians 4:23-24 NKJV) It’s a choice of your heart that you put on a new man, and you say, “From my heart inwards, I will be in the Church and be convicted, and this will be a conviction of my life that I will live connected to the Church.”
If you are going to become disconnected from the Church, that God’s called you to be part of, then, you should go to the members of the Church, and you should say, “I’m leaving and here’s why I want to leave, I’m taking my gifts and my calling with me.” They should all preside over your gifts and your callings, and they should witness with the fact that God is releasing you into a different body.
That is not something that should happen very easily. That is something that should be a life decision. “No, I don’t like what you just said, Pastor John, because now I can’t just leave when I want to.” Good, you are now responsible for it. Praise the Lord.
Next week, when I have some drama here, I’m going to talk to you about the cage of oneness that you can see through your cage of your oneness into your future and into your life and into the things you can have a vision for your life, in the cage of your oneness. I’m going to show you what that means to you, and what that does to you. And we’re going to have some drama around that next week.
So, you can’t just take this one message or last week’s message and this week’s message and say, I’m going to live my life by these two messages. There is still two more to come at least. I can’t get to the fourth one until I’ve got to the third one because I have to have some drama so that you will understand the power of what I’m talking about. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
The good news is that you are here today, and the good news is that you heard this message today. It’s also bad news for you because you’re now responsible to hear this message and live this message and do this message. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
Won’t you all stand with me please. Glory to God. Please put your hand on your heart like this. I would like you to just say this with me. I, thank You, Lord, that You are my Savior. I am a son of God. I live with You. I live in You. And I live for You, in Jesus name. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Phew, if you believe that statement right there, and then God says “Come”
I don’t want to preach anymore. I have to let you go, but you know, Jesus died for all of your sins, your past sins. I read that today. Your past sins, your present sins and your future sins. The Bible says He remembers them no more. So, He can’t be outside of time and live into your time, even into your future sins, and see your sin in the future because it’s only in your future, He is outside of time, He’s already seen the whole thing.
The only thing that He’s got to do with you, is all of the choices you make with Him in your heart for the Ecclesia for His purposes, or His plans, or His assignment. And whenever you come to Him, and you say, “I’m Yours, You are mine” and He says, “Okay, let’s walk together, let’s work together, and I’ll use all of those seeds that were sown, and I will start to create your future to be in line with My plans. Because He makes all things to turn to your certain good for those who are called, who love Him and are called according to His purpose. He turns all things, all things into your certain good because you love Him, are related to Him, and I’m living according to His purpose.
Can you pray that prayer, if you don’t love Him? No. You can ask Him to help the love grow in your heart, and He’ll do that because He sent you the helper. Does that scripture apply to those that are doing their own purpose? No. He’s going to turn everything to your good if you love Him, and are called according to His purpose, and everything becomes good in your life. Hallelujah.
Can I pray for you? Father, I just pray that once again, this message will transform us, change us, cause us to come up to the fullness of everything that You have for us in our lives. I pray that Your people will go out into the world that they are a part of, because that wherever they’re going to live and do and be what they must be, that You save them from the evil one. Even though they live in an evil world, You save them from the evil one. I pray Father, that You bless them, You protect them. I pray that You provide abundantly above all that they could ask or think for them in their lives. Provide them not only with finances, but that purpose, that understanding of that calling, the understanding of Ecclesia, the understanding of what You have designed as Your body to function on the earth. I pray that peace comes upon them, not the peace that the world gives, but that peace that is outside of any of the circumstances that they experience. I pray Lord, finally, that You protect them in their physical bodies, their possessions, their health, their well being. I ask You for that Father, in the name of Jesus. If you agree with my prayer, you can say amen. Do you receive it? Say amen. Be convicted about it. Say? Amen. That’s better.
Before you go, you must say at least to one or two people. You got to do what the Pastor says this week. Bye, everybody.
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