Scripture reference: Colossians 3:1-4 (TPT); Philippians 3:10-12 (AMPC); John 12:2 (NLT); John 12:1-7 (NLT); John 12:24-26 (NLT)
Hallelujah. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Lord, praise You, Lord. Praise You, Lord. Hallelujah. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You, Lord. Hallelujah. We glorify Your name Jesus. Hallelujah. We thank You, Father, for giving us Your Word, for giving us Your very nature, for giving us Your life. And I pray Father, that as I declare Your word today, we continue to flow and we continue to hear what You have to say. We thank You, Lord, that our life is a full human lifetime of change, to get to know You. And I thank You, Lord, that You are such an amazing God that You show us Your ways day by day, as we live out our lives before You.
We thank You for it, Lord. Thank You, Lord, that every ear today is ready to hear. Every heart is ready to receive the word that You have for us. Each one uniquely, individually, even though it’s one message, You speak to each heart, what You want them to know, what You want them to hear, Father. I ask You for that today in the Name of Jesus. And everybody that’s in agreement says, Amen. Amen. You may be seated.
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Lifetime of change hey? Lifetime learner. Remember, we used to say that, lifetime learner. So we’re in a lifetime of change. This is an amazing thing to me. It’s amazing that God would create us with a spirit man, for His Spirit to live in our spirit. If you just think about that thought, for one moment, that’s just… if I, if I leave you with nothing else we can go home. I mean, if you really get to understand that the very life of God, the very awesomeness of God Himself, is living in your spirit. You’re a born again Christian. Jesus is in your heart and He lives in you. Hallelujah. That’s wow. That’s wow.
I mean, we walk in divine nature, divine life. That’s wow. Shoo. You know, like the psalmist says, Selah, pause, calmly think on that. You know, when you go home, think about God Himself lives in you. Shoo. Shoo. And so you know, He draws us, He draws us by His Holy Spirit He draws us. To live the way He wants us to live on the earth so that we get to know Him, that when we transition into the eternal presence, that is His presence. So, we are already in His presence, and the more we are in His presence in our natural bodies, we transition easier into the Heavenly presence of God. Come on, that’s a wow thought even on it’s own. You know, it’s amazing. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.
You’re all doing, all right? You’re all blessed? Glory to God. So 94.7 happened today? I didn’t ride it. How many of you know I didn’t ride it? I did not ride it, how many of you know, I did not ride it? I’m kind of seeing those are the people who watched YouTube this morning. Right? Because you knew that I preached this morning, so, huh? So, who watched the message this morning? Please put up your hand. Okay, cool. Praise the Lord.
Well, every day, moment by moment, day by day, God is showing us Himself, and He’s showing Himself off to us. He wants to, you know, He’s not a show off. He’s not. But when His life comes, His life comes into the natural world, it shows off who He is. That’s what we call supernatural. That’s what we call divine. When He comes into our natural world, and changes things, because He can because He’s Divine, then He shows off because He shows up. Hallelujah. That’s amazing.
You know, under normal circumstances, God doesn’t intervene into our natural world with miracles and a manifest presence, because He expects us to live with His life inside of us; He wants to show off through us. He doesn’t often do it all by Himself, He does it through the Church, that’s you and me. To the extent that we allow God to show off through us, He will. Amen.
So, it’s Sunday afternoon and it’s 4h30 and I want to know that you’re awake and you’re switched on here. If I see you nodding off, I had people in the church this morning, this morning, I mean, like quarter to 10 this morning [Ps John enacting people sleeping]. I’m thinking Lord, what am I preaching here that people are falling asleep, you know, like so, so you’re not allowed to. Eskom syndrome. Praise the Lord.
Before I start my message today, I have some things to share with you, some things I want to ask you if you want to be part of it today? So, first thing I want to say to you, that we are busy planning right now for Easter weekend next year, we are planning that, that Easter weekend next year will be an entire weekend of Love in a Time of War production that we are going to do in Witbank. Easter weekend. Love in a Time of War. There are some things that are on Pastor Sharon’s heart, some things on my heart. We know, we know that you crowd all like to go somewhere Easter weekend. Huh? I know this, I’m telling you way in advance so you don’t plan for next year’s long weekend and Easter weekend. If you’re going to plan something, plan to camp out in Witbank and come and join us in Love in a Time of War.
Whatever resting you need to do, there’s plenty of good places. We have access to a very good nature reserve; you can walk there, you can run there, you can cycle there, you can take your binoculars, you can go sit in a bird hide, you can watch birds there. We have an ongoing formal arrangement, which we are formalizing. God has given us such favour with the Town Council, we have made them a proposal that we will manage the financial and administration of everything that they need, we will manage it, that people come in and out of the reserve. If they are wanting to pay, like a monthly or, and this is available at the moment, you can pay a monthly or an annual fee to make use of the reserve to the Council. Otherwise, if you don’t, you have to then pay a day fee, a day entrance fee.
Other than the day entrance fee, we are prepared to manage everything else and they are more than happy to say if you do that, we’ll be very happy. So, literally we have a platform that all of Witbank that wants to be involved in the Nature Reserve has to come through Slipstream Athletic Club that is going to manage that whole resort on the town council’s behalf. Come on, that’s favour, hey? That’s blessing. So, that means that we get to have our Slipstream club members access to the nature reserve; access to everything. So, it is the next Easter weekend. I’m telling you, there’s no excuse you can get away and have a jol. You don’t have to jol at a seacoast resort somewhere. Come and jol in the Spirit. Come and jol, and see what God’s going to do Easter weekend. “Hello julle mense”. Best kind of Easter weekend you can ever have. Love in a Time of War. Okay, so now that you’ve all said yes – you’re all coming – we settled that. Hallelujah.
The next thing I want to share with you is a testimony where God had to correct me. So, when we did our Fireside chats, I put a number of projects to you; things that are next phases for us to do as faith-based exercises for both the Joburg Church and the Witbank Church. The fact that we’ve already enclosed this [Ps John referring to the church building in Jhb], is a wonderful thing. We have air conditioners that are working for us in the summertime. This is a good thing. Things are moving, they’re flowing, they’re happening. Amen.
Okay, so I’m going to get back to the Joburg facility in a minute. But I just want to share with you something about Witbank. So, remember I put on the ‘vision board’, if you like, that we needed to fix the roof in Witbank. If you remember I said, “It’s not the way I want to spend money on maintenance and fixing the roof.” Do you remember that? It’s like, “I rather want to spend money on something that’s positive.” Right? So, I said it a second time publicly. Then the Lord, in one of my times with Him in the morning, the Lord spoke to me. He said to me, He said, “So you don’t want to fix the roof, John?” I said, “Well, I’d rather spend the money on other things that are in my heart.” He said, “So Who called you to Witbank?” I said, “Well, You did, Lord.” So He said, “Who assigned you and gave you the gifts and callings to actually be a messenger for Me?” I said, “Well, You did, Lord.” So, He said, “So you don’t want to fix the roof?” So, He said, “Who gave you the church, that you can have church in the building?” I said, “Well, You did, Lord.” He said, “So, you don’t want to fix the roof?” I got the message. “I want to fix the roof.” Because I wouldn’t… If I’m not called, if I wasn’t called to Witbank, if He didn’t give us the facility, I wouldn’t have a roof to fix. I’ve got all of those things; He’s blessed us with an amazing facility there, we’ve upgraded it and made it look really nice, don’t you think? Amen. I mean, everything we’ve got there is really highest standard spec that you can get of any materials. Amen. Praise the Lord for that.
He said, “You don’t want to fix the roof?” I said, “I want to fix the roof. I really want to fix the roof, Lord.” Because He said… This is what He said to me. He said, “If you don’t want to, I won’t. Because I gave you all of that. So, if you don’t want to, I won’t.” Meaning, “I’ve got the provision for you. But if you don’t want to, I’m not going to provide you with something if you don’t want to.” “Sorry, Lord. Sorry, Lord. I really want to fix this roof.” I didn’t come and publicly do this part, but this is something that now happened between me and God that began to change in me. My declaration, and what was in my heart began to change. “I’m sorry, Lord, I really want to fix the roof. This roof is an amazing roof. Thank You, Lord, that You’ve given us the facility, so that we can change the roof. Thank You, that the roof is still working to change the roof. Thank You, that it hasn’t fallen on our heads or, you know, water has seeped through.” Because that’s the biggest problem, it’s not that it’s infrastructurally unsound, it’s that it’s rusted, and the water is leaking through. All the money we spent on sound quality, all of the insulation stuff in the roof, those that can get damaged. One of our studios that we built, that can get damaged, if the water seeps in and it doesn’t seep in for normal rainstorms, it’s like if there’s a big hailstorm and the hail gets stuck on the roof, and it begins to thaw on the roof. That’s when we have problems.
I’ve been speaking to the weather with Pastor Sharon. We’ve been in agreement; no weather pattern that comes against our church now, will have a harmful effect on the building. In the meantime, “I want to really fix this roof, Lord. I’m really happy to fix this roof. Really, really, Lord. Really, I’m happy.” The more I spoke it, and the more I thanked Him for what He’s called me to, and thanked Him for the building, thanked Him for the amazing facilities that He’s provided us with, the more my heart changed, and the more I really wanted to fix the roof.
This last week, I had lunch with a couple of business people, and they told me that they wanted to sow some seed into the ministry, which is a significant seed that they wanted to sow into the ministry. While we were having lunch, I asked them the question, I said, “So is this seed… can we actually fix the building? Can we fix the roof?” So they asked me, “So, how much is it going to cost Pastor John?” So, I told them what the number is. They said, “Let’s go.” The money’s not even going to go through the church account. They’re just going to pay for it. It’s just going to get done. It’s upwards of half a million Rand. There are many things that happen in our ministry, people sow seed into our ministry, some people sow a significant seed, I mean, financially big amounts, other people sow less; it’s less financial amounts, but they’re no less significant, because people can give and do what they can, according to the measure that they give, where God has blessed them.
Why am I telling you this story? Number one, I’m telling you, because I needed to make public that I had to change my heart before God before He would come and answer. Hallelujah. When I did change my heart, He answered in a spectacular way. These businessmen are ready and willing and wanting to part with their money because God supernaturally provided income for their business that literally two months ago wasn’t there. It literally wasn’t there. They came and approached them and said, “Can you do this for us very quickly, can you do it by the end of the year? Because we’ve got to pay for it in this year’s budget?” So, I thank God that it’s in their heart, to say, “Thank You, Lord, for what You’ve done. We recognise the glory of what You’ve done in our business. So, we are going to sow not 10%, but a significant amount of the entire turnover, to get this job done.”
That’s not even the end of it. This is because, I’m answering this because God gave us a way to pay for the roof and I’m speaking specifically about the roof project because it was me involved. I had to change. I had to accept it, “Wait a minute, what’s going on here?” Because the Lord spoke to me. “If you don’t want to, I won’t.” I mean, it sounds like a simple thing, right? “But if you don’t want to, I won’t.” So, that’s the relationship that the Lord has with me, “I need your faith, John, I need you to recognize what’s at work here. I need you to recognize that I’m involved in everything that you’re doing in your life and fixing a roof is no less my involvement with you and your calling and all the people that are with you in the ministry. It’s no less My involvement than anything other than you do, that is new. No less My involvement because it’s Me that called you, you just a vessel.” “Got it straight, Lord.”
“Okay, vessel, I want to… Good thing you changed your mind about that, John, because now I will,” in less than a month, when I changed. So, this should be good news for you because there’s something else that happened and so I told the Witbank people this morning, I’ll share, I’ll become vulnerable with you. You just are not allowed to use it against me. If you do, I’ll ask my angels to beat you and keep you awake at night so that you don’t sleep. I know you won’t. I know you won’t. I know you won’t.
I began to have this, this searching in my heart with the Lord about, “Why is it that I had this attitude and so the attitude came from this.” It’s like, there’s so much stuff that God wants us to do and so, if I took the amount of money that it’s going to need to fix the roof. So, by the way, there were two types of solutions for the roof. The one was the short term solution which was effectively putting materials, repainting the roof and putting waterproofing materials on the roof that would give us, maybe five years, maybe five years of a ‘window’ where it would be okay for five years. Or we could fix this problem for 30 years and do it properly.
The reason I came to the two solutions, so obviously, there’s a big difference in the number. So, the one number was R280 000 and the other one was way upside of half a million. It started out at 1.2 million and then started coming down because the first solution was to take the old roof off, put a new roof on. So, that’s quite a big deal. Also means you got to shut the church down and all of those things. But we have engineers in the ministry and I got in the engineers and some people that have done some significant commercial developments, in terms of buildings and so on, and so I got them involved and I said, “Please tell me if there’s another solution that we can get for the roof.” So, they went to professional people that they are used to dealing with. They talked to them, the engineer spoke about it, they came in, they got on the roof, inspected the roof, did the whole thing. They came and gave a much lower thing. But their idea was, “Don’t touch the old roof. Let’s just put a new roof on the old roof.” So, that’s what we’re doing. We’re going to, the engineer put all the designs together and so now we’re going to put out a new roof on top of the old roof. Praise the Lord, you know. So, if you happen to come through to Witbank in the near future, you will see that there is building that will progress this week and so they’ve already started getting the materials, putting the project people that they need to put in resources into make this thing start working.
“But Lord, why is it that I have this issue with this building with this roof?” So, at the heart of it, I discovered in myself that I still needed to deal, that I wasn’t aware of, because how many of you think I have a poverty mentality? Do you think I have a prosperity mentality? Do you think I have abundance mentality? So, why did I have a problem with a roof? The reason I had a problem with the roof, is because, I began to, I subconsciously look at monthly expenses that have to come and be used in the ministry, things that have to change, things that we’ve still got to do to make progress. Then I look at the amount of money that we need to spend on a roof and subconsciously, I’m limiting God to how much money that people are connected to wanting this ministry to grow, have available to them, to have all our normal expenses paid for and still have all that money to put into it and still grow. So, this is both maintenance and growth. You understand? So, deep, deep inside of me, I discovered, I’m limiting God to what my human eye and my brain, my human brain, calculated He could do. That’s a human reality. That’s not a God reality.
I recognized, I said, “So, Lord, where does this thing come from?” He said, “Those are still roots, those are still the embers, if you like, of a poverty mentality and a scarcity mentality because you think there’s not enough money with people that are in covenant and connected with you, to actually provide income to get that roof fixed and have money available for growth for the future. So, you have to deal with that.” So, I said, “Okay, Lord, I want to and I deal with this thing inside of me, I’m taking all the limits off,” because He’s already been speaking to me about 2022 that we’re going to go ‘Big and Bold, version 2, in 22’. So, if you’re going to go big and bold, version two in 22, then it means that’s more than you did this year and this year has been a spectacular year.
Do you remember January, February, we took the old platform out, put a new platform in, put a whole thing in there, you’ve seen all the vlogs; put the digital board in, changed the whole stage, changed the auditorium. I mean, this year, just from an infrastructure point of view, changed the facilities, put a new kitchen in where the A-Team and the interns are. I mean from an infrastructure point of view, we’ve gone a long way this year. If we’re going to go ‘Big and Bold, version 2, in 22’ then we got to get ready for more, better upgraded stuff. Right? He said, “Don’t limit Me John. Don’t limit Me John. Speak what I tell you to speak and go for it.” Hallelujah. So you know, we have a, just from the few things that we are gathering, that there’s going to be 10 to 14 new interns that are going to join us next year. Seems to be there’s not a lot of current year interns that are leaving. Space, growth, more infrastructure. “Yes, sir.” Amen. Praise the Lord.
I want to do something about this building, this building, and I’m just doing a practical thing how you can get involved about immediately beginning to do this building, because I’ve got plans next year for us to come on site, in January, end of January, we’re going to come on site, we’re going to come camp here, we’re going to come onsite here and we are going to hit this place and we’re going to do stuff here and it’s going to be part of what God is going to want with building and integrating relationships and integrating what God wants to do in His work here as well as in Witbank. Amen.
Okay, so I want to start, I want to start building where it is this wooden wall, I want to start building a brick wall. So, I’m making you a suggestion. Suggestion is, you can buy 1000 bricks, you can buy 2000 bricks, you can buy 10,000 bricks. How many bricks do you want to buy? It’s a simple solution. If you just buy a 1000 bricks, maybe it’s R700, R800, I don’t know stock bricks, how much they cost. You can tell me. I don’t know. R1200 for 1000 stock bricks. I just thought about, you know, the way the Lord gave it to me. He said, “John, if you want people to get involved and they want to get involved, this is a simple way you can get involved. If you just buy 1000 bricks or 10,000 bricks and have them delivered, or give us the money, this is for bricks and then we can have bricks delivered, delivered, start piling them up here and then when we come and we hit here, we just come in. We build this wall around. Then the next thing we’ll do is put the roof on, then before we know it, we’ll have a new facility here. It’ll have all the electronics and all of the stuff that Witbank has, we’ll have it here. And it will happen like this, like this. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
So you might think to yourself, “But 1000 bricks, Pastor John, what’s 1000 bricks?” Every 1000 bricks counts. You got to start with 1000 and lo and behold, you also have to finish with 1000, you know, and there’s a few 1000 in between, but you got to start with a 1000 first. So, I’m determined, anyway, I’m determined to start with 1000. Amen. Hallelujah.
We are going to start doing things we got to build up these steel columns that have been built underneath this facility so that engineeringly, we’ve done all the work that we need to do to make this a secure sound, solid infrastructure underneath so whatever we put on top, there’s no more requirements to build underneath here we’ve already done that. That’s what the steel poles are that are all around it, so we got to cover those columns. But I want to do that last. I don’t want to do that first. I want to build the auditorium first. What do you all say? Because if we put the building around us like this, we can keep having church here and then one day we just say okay, you’re all going to come back to Witbank for two weeks, we shutting down here because we putting the roof on and then we come back, we’ve got a whole new building. And we will have, then we’ll be able to create the infrastructure that we need to look after little kids and not so little kids and everything in between. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Glory to Jesus.
Let me tell you, up to this point, God has never let me down. We’re still here. We experienced miracle growth during COVID from our music ministry, to our infrastructure, to our intern program, to everything that we did to our initial orientation week in the bush to the tour of destiny. I’m going to call it the tour of destiny. We have had in the last, since COVID started, just before COVID started, we have had miraculous growth. Many other ministries have shut their doors, but we have had miraculous growth, the supernatural resurrection life of Jesus, and has been at work in us over this period of time. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
My foundation scripture, I’m going to read to you from Colossians three verse one to four out of the Passion translation, says, 1 Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. That means resurrection, that power of resurrection means you are resurrected to a new being, a new life. 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, honour, and authority! 2 Yes, 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)
The natural person that you see walking around is not the real you. I mean, this sounds like this is a contradiction, if you like, the person that you see; that’s not the real you. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. This is, this is the truth, hey Elrika? I might be looking at you in the natural, but that’s not the real you; the real you is the Christ that’s in you. That’s amazing. Sure, wow. The more we begin to see each other through the eyes of Christ and see the Christ in each other, the more we don’t put limitations on what your human body looks like to us. We have to, we need to see the Christ that’s in you, each other, that’s who we really are. So, whatever is happening to distract you in this natural realm, you know, we have to consider this. Consider that when you made Jesus the Lord and Saviour of your life, you chose Him to live inside of you.
If He’s living inside of you, your walk into eternal life with Christ has already begun. Right? So, why is it that we need to come to church? I so ask you today, why did you come to church today? Why are you in church? Why are you here? If you’re here because this is where you normally come, then coming to church every Sunday and having an experience with God on a Sunday is not really what God’s called you to. That’s not really why you’re here. You’re in church every Sunday because the message and the coming together of our fellowship is designed to create an atmosphere where God can reveal more of Himself so that we can all grow together. If you’re here by someone’s invitation, and you’re not normally the person who comes here, then I would say, you need to find it in your heart as to what is your attitude towards church.
The church is not the buildings. We’re busy developing the buildings and we’re building infrastructure because I know that we need to have better infrastructure as life is progressing at a real speed. If I have to project where this ministry and where we are all going to be because of where the world is going to be in the next ten years. Really, the world is going to be in a very different place in the next ten years than it is now. Whatever we’re doing now, we have to create a capability. We have to create the honesty, we have to create the circumstances in our world right now that can cater for what we are going to do. What’s going to come into our world in the next ten years. What if there is a COVID Delta X variant? What is that going to do to how we are going to work together? You think China has released its last attack on the West? You think China’s the only one that’s going to attack the West? They have found a weapon to use against the Western mentality and the Western culture. They are going to try and dominate the world because that’s the way the enemy of God works is they’re going to try and dominate the world.
We have to be ready spiritually. We have to be ready with whatever it takes, that when that begins to happen, that we are ready to confront it with a spirit life, the resurrection life of Christ. Ten years ago, if you had predicted ten years ago that the world would be in the state that it is in now, you could not have seen it. You could not have actually said this is going to be what’s going to be ten years from now. Ten years back, but suddenly, a lot has changed in the world because of one virus. Hallelujah.
Philippians chapter three, verse 10, says, 10 [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], not just anybody, it exerts on believers, and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] 11 That if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body]. 12 Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus… has laid hold of me and made me His own. (Philippians 3:10-12 AMPC)
In other words, what Paul is saying here, “The power of resurrection life is working so powerfully in me, that while I’m in the body, I can live in such a resurrected state, that it would look like I’m already resurrected for eternity while I’m in the body.” That’s what Paul’s saying. He’s not saying, “I look to be resurrected when I die.” No, he’s speaking present tense resurrection. This is wow. Present tense resurrection. He says, “You know, that I might even attain this while I’m alive, not that I’ve already achieved it, but I’m pressing hold of it, and I’m laying hold on it.”
How does it come? In some way it also comes from suffering with him. What’s the biggest suffering that the Apostle Paul, do you think the biggest suffering the Apostle Paul faced? You might say to me, and you might think to me, it’s on a boat; in chains; in prisons; being whipped; actually being killed and raised to life again. You might say, those are all the sufferings and all the sufferings Paul’s talking about. Those are certainly part of them. But the greatest suffering that Paul had was that he had a conflict in himself, where he found his old nature from time to time wanting to overcome his spiritual nature.
He’s speaking and he said, “I want the resurrection life and the resurrection power of God to work in me so mightily, that it lifts me out from among the people, while I’m still in the body. So, that I attain a level of walk with God, that it looks like I’ve been resurrected from the body in eternity, while I’m still in the body.” That’s quite a goal to have. That’s quite a press to have with God. Hallelujah. Amen. Praise the Lord.
I go now to speak about, and I’m going to share this as is my closing argument in this legal case that I’m presenting to you about the resurrection life of Christ. So, Jesus arrived at Bethany. Bethany is so close to Jerusalem that you could, it’s almost part of Jerusalem. 1 Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. Just a side note here, the name Lazarus is an abbreviation from the name Eliezer which is whom God helps. I receive that for me, Lord, I receive, God helps me. God helps me. How did he help Lazarus? Lazarus was sick, he died and He raised Him from the dead. Amen. That is, that is the resurrection power at work right there.
So, let’s carry on 2 A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. (John 12:1-2 NLT) I just want you to be with me in a moment with Lazarus, here is a man who had lived, got sick, he died and he was separated from his body. So, now remember, that the real you, the real you as I’ve just read to you from the Bible is not what I see, the real you is what’s inside of you. Because you are a spirit being, has a soul, that lives in a body, your spirit and soul will go from your body when you die into eternity, either with God or away from God. In the time that Lazarus died, there was a waiting place that is referred to in the Bible as Abraham’s bosom, but it was a separate place. It wasn’t separated from God eternally, it wasn’t hell, it was a separate place where all people who believed in God, in one way or another, they went there. They were all waiting for Jesus, the Messiah to come to release them from that place. People that were evil and served and worshipped other idols, they had no, they didn’t go to the waiting place, they went straight into the I want to call the hell zone. Because the hell zone is the zone where people are separated eternally from the life of God.
The Bible calls the devil the author of all lies, in him is no light, he is completely dark, he’s completely destructive, completely evil. Your separation from God is, you’re completely alone, you’re completely dark in the dark, you’re completely separated from all other beings spiritually, for eternity, with your own passions and your own desires you were not willing or wanting to deal with when you were in the body, or give Jesus the opportunity to change you and make Him the Lord and Saviour of your life, you will eternally be separated from that life. That it’s a thought, not even, I mean, it’s too horrible to think about, that you will live completely alone in darkness, with your desires, with your passions, completely separated from any other being. The only other beings you’ll be aware of will be the demonic spirit beings that are themselves eternally going to be separated from, from humans and from any other life. They themselves are going to have the same thing, living in their own spirit being for eternity without light, without truth, without anything, but only with passion and desire that they didn’t deal with when they were on the earth because they allowed their bodies and the will of themselves to separate themselves from God, while on the earth.
This man, Lazarus, has experienced the crossover. He crossed over from his natural world into the world beyond. He had been in the bosom of Abraham, let’s just call it that for now. The waiting place, he had been in the waiting place, the Man that raised him from the dead, he now knows, he knows that this Life that is sitting at the same table, is the Life that raised me from the dead, the same life is what’s waiting for me on the other side. Imagine being Lazarus at that table, what have you got to say about what you saw across the divide? There’s not much spoken about Lazarus in the Bible, because I believe God didn’t want to focus that much on Lazarus because he was going to glorify His Son in death. The resurrection of Lazarus was to glorify the Father and the Son while He was on the earth and there would be a glorification that would come through resurrection.
Are you all still with me here? But I’m really wanting you to journey with me with the next passage of scripture. Whenever I teach, and most of the times when you hear this passage of scripture ministered to you, it’s very often about the number, the value of the seed and about sowing the seed. But this is not what I’m teaching today. I’m wanting you to see this from a different perspective. So, Lazarus was with those who ate with him. 3 Then Mary took a 12-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from the essence of Nod, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it wiping his feet with her hair, the house was filled with the fragrance.” (John 12:2-3 NLT)
I want you to journey with me in your imagination for a minute. Those days when dinner was prepared, or in those days when people lived in houses, most often it was not seated at tables with chairs, like we have in our modern day world. For the most part, people sat with low tables, or low serving things and they would sit around on pillows or carpets or things, they would sit around the table, and they would eat together. Are you all with me? So, whether it was so, if you can imagine Jesus is probably reclining, He’s reclining, maybe half sitting on an elbow or maybe sitting against something sitting at the low table where food would be presented. From a graphic point of view, even if they were sitting at a Western modern day table with chairs, the image becomes even more compelling, because you’re sitting upright and you’re sitting, and you would be looking down. But I’m wanting you to imagine for a minute. Jesus came to raise Lazarus from the dead. This Lazarus is sitting at the table. Mary is in the house with Jesus. She has this precious thing that’s taken her a long time, a whole years’ worth of an average person’s income; she’s taken this precious thing and she begins to wipe the feet of Jesus. So, she’s got long hair, so, she takes her long hair, and she takes the perfume, and she rubs it with her hair into Jesus’ feet.
I want you to just imagine with me for a moment that Jesus is, let’s say He’s reclining, because that was the most likely thing that was happening, then, you know? Let’s just say He’s reclining, and His feet are halfway out there. Mary comes in with this container of fragrance and she begins to sit at His feet, kneel at His feet, she’s got to get down really low and she’s got to take her hair, she’s got to take the ointment and put it into His feet, then take her hair and rub the ointment with her hair into His feet.
Do you suppose that there was any pride in Mary doing that? Do you think there was any humanity that says, “Look at me what I’m doing because what I’m doing is so special”? What was happening in her? “Jesus, I know that Jesus is the Messiah, because Martha already said so. I know Jesus is the Messiah. I know that He’s the future resurrection life. He raised my brother from the dead. What have I got to give Him even this perfume that is so amazingly expensive, it is so rare and it is so beautiful. This is not even worthy of what I can do for Him. But that’s the best I’ve got to give Him.”
She comes with her hair and this perfume, and she begins to anoint His feet with this fragrant oil, cream, perfume, and she is rubbing it into Him with her hair. You understand that her face, her nose, her eyes, her face, it is not up here [Pastor John points to his face level] at eye contact level with Jesus at whatever level that might be. It is down in a posture not even making contact with Jesus, only in humbleness and absolute gratitude, absolute thankfulness, absolute affection for Jesus in her heart; a love for God that is beyond human understanding. This love, she is pouring out to Him with her expensive ointment. She is pouring out her past life savings, her past life everything, she is pouring it out on Jesus’ feet. Can I say, affectionately intimate? The world and a lot of people have tried to misuse this scripture to make some kind of modern-day sexual connotation to it, but it is not like that at all. This is a moment of intimate worship. This is an intimate worship where she is taking her hair and rubbing it into Him because this, she knows is the Son of God. This she knows, the power to raise her brother from the dead. The gratitude and the love and the worship of Him was being poured out. You’re all with me?
Same room, same room as Lazarus that’s been raised from the dead, same room that they’re all eating together there is another person there which I now read to you: 4 But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray Jesus, said, 5 “That perfume was worth a year’s wages.] It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” 6 Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money (Jesus and the disciples’ money), he often stole some for himself. (John 12:4-6 NLT)
Worship, a liar and a thief, betrayer, same room. What did the act of worship do? The act of humble affectionate worship revealed the heart of the spirit that was in the room that refused to acknowledge and worship Jesus, even though he was a disciple, walking around with Jesus. He just refused to do that; “I do not accept this.” How could you watch such a deep intimate moment of worship and while worship is going on, all you can think about is money? Do you understand what happened? That while her worship was happening with an expensive fragrance in the air, the spirit of mammon, the god of money, was working in Judas and saying, “This is wrong! You can’t pour out that much money on someone’s feet! It’s all wrong! That money can do so many other things, this is all wrong!” His heart of a thief and the betrayal heart was revealed in someone else’s intimate worship.
I say to you, there are a few things I need to say to you today. One of the things I need to say to you today, is that there may be some of you that feel like you have been speaking the Word, you go to church regularly, you’re engaged with the ministry, but you just don’t feel like you can cross that barrier of having victory. I’ve got good news for you today. If you will allow your heart to be changed by this message as this messenger declares it to you, and you take time out every day for two minutes, and I always say, start with two minutes. You don’t have to do more than 2 minutes, but if you start with two minutes and you say, “I am going to recognise Him, and from my heart I am going to worship Him, and I am going to praise Him.” You can do that in the shower. How long does a very quick shower take you, 90 seconds? 2 minutes? A quick shower? I mean, that is really quick, right? I mean, if you really want to get clean quickly, you can. You know, you can jump into the water, splash, splash, splash, soap, soap, soap. You can do it in two minutes, right? Most of the time it takes three, four, five minutes to have a proper shower, right? Call it five. Let me tell you, if you give your heart to God, for the time that you are in the shower, and you worship Him from your heart, there is no one else involved in that, just you and Him. From your heart you thank Him, you praise Him, you glorify Him, it will cross you over that barrier and bring you into a new resurrected life of intimacy with God.
Let me tell you, that the Bible says what Jesus did, the acts of Jesus are so numerous, that there are not enough pages to record all of the things that Jesus did. It’s in the Bible. There were not enough books in the world at that time to record all the works that Jesus did. But this one is in the Bible. This story is in the Bible, an intimate moment of worship from her heart; affection. Yes, it happened to involve something of great value to her because in her moment of worship, she realised that there is nothing of more value to me that I can show my love for Him than this most valuable thing that I have saved up for. I mean, how do you live your life and then get a whole years’ worth of wage of perfume? That didn’t just happen overnight. This is something that happened over a long period of time that she was able to obtain this valuable thing and she ‘wasted’ it in a few minutes.
Judas is looking on. So, I want to say to you, firstly, if you are confessing, declaring, going to prayer meetings, and yet there is breakthroughs that you don’t see yourself having in your life, the first thing I want to say is, have an intimate time with God every day; worship Him. Don’t let your life of faith be a ‘works’ programme of declarations, because that is what I am talking about, always, when I say to you; faith is not a formula for success, it is God’s pattern for victory. But it is always about an intimate personal relationship with the Word. The second thing I want to say to you is, when you do that, always, there is going to be someone close that is going to have the spirit of mammon, the spirit of religion, or some other kind of spirit, a familiar spirit, a deceiving manipulating spirit. There is always going to be someone close by that is going to be triggered by your moments of worship. Because what will happen is that your heart will begin to become soft, before the very presence of God and the love of God. People will begin to see that this person’s changed. What’s happened to this person? What’s happened here, something is different about you, what is going on with you?
I had the privilege of getting to know a Pastor that lives in America, and I’ve known him for many years. One day, I found myself in his company quite a lot. Over a number of days, maybe a week, we were in each other’s company a lot I had many times to have that amount of time with him. Suddenly, I recognized and I said, “Something has changed in you,” I called him by name, “Something has changed in you. There’s something about your heart that’s changed. What’s happened?” You know, and immediately he said to me, “Well, that’s very observant of you, John.” But for the first… He had been in the ministry like 30-40 years, he said, “For the first time, I’ve been able to have a consistent, intimate prayer life with God every day.” This is a pastor, faith preacher. I said “I can see it in your, I can see it in your body, I can see it in your way that you communicate, and the words that you speak the way that you go about stuff, I can see it.”
When you give your life to God like that, people can see it. They touch it, they hear it, it’s got a different sound. It’s got an authority to it. It’s got a humility to it. It’s got a recognition that God is awesome. I’m just nothing, I’m a vessel, but God is awesome. It’s almost like their features even change. You know, so sometimes you can’t detect it immediately. But over time people will see it. Don’t be surprised if other things get activated around you. Suddenly, there’s money issues, suddenly, there’s all kinds of challenges happening in your life; but I’m worshipping You, Lord, but I’ve got all these other challenges. Yeah, because the very worship that you’re giving God, is attracting other spirits that want to stop what you’re doing, want to stop you, they want to stop you from worshipping Him; they want to stop you from giving your heart to Him. Because after all, the contest of humanity is what you worship. Who you worship. It’s the whole deal of humanity, is who do you worship?
Judas Iscariot, his heart was revealed, like that. So, what does Jesus say? Jesus says, 7 Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. (John 12:7 NLT) I don’t want to talk too much about the rest of the verse. I just want to say to you, that when you begin to worship and you feel all these other things beginning to come and attack you, you use the authority of the name of Jesus and you say, “Leave me alone. Leave me alone.” If you can’t say that to the person’s face, say it to the spirit, about that person. You say, “Leave me alone, because you’re harassing me.” The spirit that’s driving you which might be a mammon spirit, it might be a religious spirit. It might be a perverted sex spirit, might be a whole bunch of different spirits that are all familiar spirits; familiar spirits are so much more prevalent than people even think about. Because it’s a spirit that works through people’s opinions, that they think they know you so they express lots of opinions about you. Don’t be surprised as you worship that those things happen around you. “Leave me alone. I’ve been raised from the dead. I’m worshipping God. I have the resurrection life of Christ working in me, leave me alone.” Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Finally, I have to say this to you, this moment happens, I just want to, I kind of want to share this thing with you that happened with me this weekend. So, normally, I would go cycling with people on Saturday mornings. But Friday night Pastor Sharon said to me, “John, please don’t go cycle tomorrow. Please stay with me.” So, physically, I wasn’t feeling so great. My body’s recovering from some things. So I’ve been measuring whether I should be cycling anyway. But she came to me and she said, “John, please don’t go cycling tomorrow.”
Now, you know, cycling on a Saturday morning is a big deal. Because it’s the one day of the week where you can all come together. You can all cycle and it’s fun. It’s early in the morning, and you have a lot of good fellowship. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just say amen anyway. “John, please don’t, please don’t go. Please stay with me.” “Okay babe, I’m with you.” You see, she doesn’t often make that kind of pull on me much. Because she knows that part of my assignment is doing what I’m doing with this physical conditioning and cycling and stuff like that. She doesn’t often, but if she’s calling me, then there’s something going on in her heart that I must respond to. It’s part of the reason we’ve been married, and our marriage is so good after 40 years. She called me. Now, okay, I’m not, I’m not going. So, turns out that she’s up normally on like, on a Friday morning, four o’clock in the morning, she’s up, she goes, and she begins to pray.
I’m normally up around quarter to five, five o’clock somewhere on a bad day. Occasionally, it might be a bit later than that but I’m normally up in my own space around that time. Because you know, I’ve told you before, Pastor Sharon doesn’t want to talk to anybody else in the morning before she talks to the Lord, that includes me. This is real. This is our life. This is real. That’s how she wants to be. So, she’s up and she’s, she’s out and she’s praying. But it’s like 20-25 minutes, she’s back in the room. So, we open the curtains looking out on the dam, on the water and there we sit in bed, and we begin to just share the Word of God with each other. We begin to exchange life. We exchange the Word, we begin to exchange the life of God between us.
She had things that she wants to speak from her spirit man, to me. Then she was calling spirit to spirit and she wanted my response spiritually. She didn’t know what she was wanting on Friday night, she was just responding to the urging of the Spirit. How many people do you think are more important than that to me? Zero. I’m here to serve you and minister to you. But she’s more important to me. Fortunately, the love of God that’s in us is the same love that ministers to you. So, I don’t have to choose. But on this morning I had to choose. So, and it’s just a momentary thing. So, we ended up having a fabulous day, sharing the word, communicating with each other, being in each other’s space.
So now, I ask you what’s more important to you than your Creator of the resurrected life in you? What’s more important to you? Have time with Him? Or just going about your daily business every day? Come on. Because He’s calling you all the time. “Come talk to Me. Come be with Me.” “Well, what happens when I do that? Lord, I don’t want to do that because when I’m in Your presence I feel guilt or feel shame I feel all of these things that I got things wrong and I haven’t done this…” God didn’t ask you to be ashamed or to feel guilty or to feel condemned. That is a human emotion that the devil uses to keep you from worship. “Leave me alone thought life; leave me alone. Spirit man speak, spirit man speak.” If you live in human reality all the time, then the spiritual reality becomes less and less, your ability to cross over… It’s crossover time. It’s crossover time.
I’m not going to share the rest of the stuff with you. I’m going to close with this. I tell you the truth… John 12 verse 24; 24 I tell you the truth unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies it remains alone, but its death will produce many new kernels of plentiful harvest of new lives. 25 Those who love their life in this world. Those who love their life in this world, do you love your life in this world? Please don’t. “But I really like the way my life is going.” Please don’t love your way in this world. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. So let’s not, let’s not even talk about the eternal component of this, let’s just talk about the natural component. If you live life, by your own way of life, you have chosen yourself to establish your own life, you will lose the connection. Momentarily at least you will lose the connection to the real life.
25 Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who can care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity. 26 Anyone who wants to serve me must follow me. Because my servants must be where I am and the Father will honor anyone who serves me. (John 12:24-26 NLT) Who wants the honour of the Father? What do you think, God… How do you think God will show His honour to you? Remember, this is why you’re in the earth. He’s not talking about eternity here, this does play out for eternity; but He’s talking about your life now.
It’s time to let go of those things that are holding you in the love of this life and let Him be the love of your life. I am very much aware of the practicalities of a busy lifestyle, and all of the things that draw our attention and take our energy. But I’m saying to you, if you want to redeem your future, you’ve got to say right now “I’m going to serve Jesus. I’m going to be where He is and I’m going to follow Him.”
Hallelujah. Will you all stand with me please? Praise the Lord. It seems to me like the air cons are cold in here. I asked you this last week and you said no. Maybe it’s because it was much hotter this last week. But it seems to me like you’ve all got jerseys on, you’re all going like this. Sorry for that. We’ll get a happy medium somewhere in between.
Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. So it is my prayer for you… It is my prayer for you that you will crossover into that space of resurrection life. That is Christ Jesus. That life that will change everything for you. That power that’s available to live in you and is living in you, that it will change everything that is around you. That is my prayer for you today. Amen, that you will get out of your heads. Remember I preached that series Blow You Mind. Just blow your mind. Just blow it up right now. With the love of God, just blow it up with the Word of God, blow up your mind with the intimacy of God, is my pray that you will become be able to pray like the apostle Paul and say, “It’s my determined purpose to know Him intimately, it’s my determined purpose to follow Him, pursue Him and serve Him and be where He is.” Where is He? He’s inside of you, but He’s with you everywhere He’s in the Word He is in the Holy Spirit; with you.
Hallelujah. Do you receive this today? Say amen. Glory to Jesus. Why don’t you do this with me? Put your hand on your heart like this, and say, “Jesus, You are my Lord and Saviour. Thank You for living in my heart. Thank You for saving me from me. I declare that the resurrection power of Jesus, that resurrection life lives powerfully inside of me. I receive it. I take it. I live it. In Jesus’ name.”
Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. I just want to pray for you as we close. Will you agree with me and pray right now? Father, I pray in the name of Jesus, that this week as these precious ones go in their different ways, do what they have to do. I pray Father, that You would bless them, keep them. I pray, Lord, that this word that has been spoken that they will be willing to come towards You, not run away from You to be there where you are in everything that they do. I pray Father, that You would make yourself more real to them day by day as they choose to keep following You. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord, that no weapon formed against them prospers. Thank You, Lord, that they’re blessed going out and blessed coming in. I thank You, Lord, that they will have the peace of God and the joy of the Lord will just rest upon them. I pray Father, that You protect their finances, You protect them in their health, and You protect them in everything that they do in their life. Hallelujah. Glory to God, I pray that there will be a major restoration in areas where the enemy has come against Your people, that restoration is released through the life of Christ, resurrection power, there is restoration happening right now in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Do you agree with us prayer? Say, amen. You can do better than that. Thank you for coming to church, God bless you.
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