Scripture reference: 1 John 4:10, 19 (NLT); John 15:16 (MSG); Matthew 16:18 (NLT); Matthew 22:36-40 (NLT); Romans 9:20-21 (NKJV); 2 Timothy 2:15, 19–22 (NKJV); 1 Corinthians 7:17 (MSG); Psalm 139:16 (NLT); Jeremiah 1:5 (NLT); Galatians 1:15 (NLT); 2 Timothy 1:8-9 (NKJV); Ephesians 2:10 (TPT)
Hallelujah. It’s a good day to be in the house of the Lord. Yes. It’s a good day. Amen. Yeah. And just so for your information, I slept well last night and I’m feeling good this morning. I did a half marathon and then I cycled 48 k’s this morning, and I prayed for 2 hours. And so if you believe that, Yeah. I prayed, but I didn’t do all that other stuff. Yeah. Praise the Lord. Let’s just ask the Holy Spirit to be a part of our meeting today. I mean, I’ve already asked Him, but let’s do it again together corporately. Amen.
Thank you Lord, that we have this moment, this day, on this special day. We thank You that we are about to encounter and continue to encounter You every day, every way, everywhere together. And right now, in this togetherness, we thank You that Your presence is here. Because without it, every word we say would do nothing. And so, we ask You, Holy Spirit, to make the word of God alive to us. Changing us, transforming us, growing us. We thank You for it, Father. Every heart is ready to receive. Every mind is clear. Ears are ready to hear. We thank You for it in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.
A cluttered mind is a difficult thing to keep quiet when God is trying to speak to you. And every day we have to combat the cluttered mind. We have to come combat that foggy mind. That mind that is always just trying to run its own direction all the time. Got to tell your mind to be quiet so your spirit can speak. And that’s part of successful Christian living, is to shut down the cluttered mind. And of course, on the other side, you know, the system is designed to clutter your mind more and more, more and more. So, anyway, I’m not here to talk about that so much today.
So, yesterday in the evening, I talked about, let us run and let us endure and let us keep going. Amen. So, we got to keep doing that. So, I’m going to just set us on our course by talking about multi-dimensional ministry for a minute, and then we’ll go into the rest of the things that the Lord wants me to talk about today. So, multi-dimensional ministry. Yesterday evening, I read this quote to you from a man called Simpson. The Christian that is bound by his own horizon, the church that lives simply for itself is bound to die a spiritual death and sink into stagnancy and corruption. We never can thank God enough for giving us not only a whole gospel to believe, but a whole world to give it to. – A B Simpson
I listened to an interview recently with a priest that comes out of the church of England in the UK, and the interviewer interviewing the priest I don’t know his name and I don’t know the interviewer’s name. I just found it quite interesting because of the subject title. He was interviewing the priest, and he was asking about the state of the church in England. It was quite alarming actually to hear what he had to say in the beginning of the interview. He was basically saying the church in England, and he kind of described the majority of the church, not the evangelical church, although he talked a little bit about the evangelical church. But he talked about the traditional church, so it would be the Church of England, the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, all of those more formal kinds of traditional churches. He was saying that over the last 50 to 70 years, the church in England has deteriorated remarkably, and in the last 30 years, the country itself, England, has had this tolerance culture, and in fact, even now, the big ideology of England is a culture of tolerance.
So, in other words, we’ve got to tolerate all groups of people, all colours, all races, all religions, every ethnicity, a whole thing about tolerance. So, the overwhelming thing about the nation of England is that it’s becoming a tolerating nation. The other part that he spoke about is not news to me. It’s because it’s on the news that there’s a big problem of immigrants coming into England and it’s become a big political hot potato. Because, you know, they want to stop immigration, and of course, the prime minister passed a law that was hotly contested, that they want to actually take immigrants out of England and fly them to Rwanda.
You heard about that? No? You don’t know about that? Anyway, it was a big hot potato politically. Literally, they’d passed a law in parliament that immigrants anywhere, they are entitled to take immigrants and send them off to Rwanda and pay Rwanda as a government so many 1,000 of pounds to actually host all the immigrants that are overwhelming the UK. True factual story. Seems like Pastor Melusi knows what I’m talking about. I’ve got it right, hey? 100%. So, I mean, most of you don’t know what I’m talking about. It looks like you’re looking at me, could that be true? It’s absolutely true.
So, immigration in the UK is really a hot potato, you know. I mean over the years they’ve had this culture of tolerance. Tolerance, tolerance. We’ve got to tolerate all people, we’ve got to tolerate all religions, we’ve got to be tolerant. So, of course the next subject was how the Church has become a tolerating church. And how they have no clue how to deal with homosexuality in the church. They have no clue how to deal with all kinds of moral issues in the church. In particular, the Christian Church in the UK has become so weak that, and this was his reference point or his perspective anyway. That the mayor of London has just been voted in by a huge quantity, a block vote is what he called it, a block vote. The mayor of London has been voted into a third term as mayor of London. Because he’s Muslim and he is traditionally of Indian descent. But the Muslims voted him into office for a third consecutive term. As a bloc vote – they’ve got so many Muslims living in London that the Muslims voted him into power for a third term because he’s Muslim.
So, what’s happening to the Christians? And so the interviewer said, “Well where do you think all of this went wrong?” He said, “Probably the end of the First World War. The end of the First World War, England started to lose its way because it started to lose its identity as a nation. It was no longer a colonial power. After the war came and went, it certainly lost its influence in the world, and it began to disintegrate as a society.” Well, of course, I mean he’s not saying this, but I know a little bit about history. And I know that in the 1940s there was a Second World War and then England or the United Kingdom handed over Israel to the, as a Palestinian state, or what they called Palestine, to the people of Israel. So, they established the nation of Israel.
Over the years, certainly all the colonial countries, or what is now known as the Commonwealth, their influence in the Commonwealth has got less and less. So, they have looked, and again, this is his perspective, they were looking more to America as a big brother that was now the big identity player. As the influencer of where England should go with its identity. So now, what is the big, big influence in America? Wokeism. Right? So, tolerating everything everywhere, wokeism. So, what’s obviously happening and what’s big in England? Wokeism. Tolerance.
So, then he briefly touched on the evangelical Church, and he said the evangelical Church, by and large, does two things. They’re either accepting the fact that the world is permitting all kinds of anti-biblical, anti-Bible practices to be in the Church. So, now I’m not sure how much you guys read about this or know about this. But there’s a big, big movement in America to be more, having more and more homosexual churches, homosexuals pastoring, leading churches in America. I’m not bashing homosexuals today.
I’m just telling you what’s happening in America, and it’s going to all kinds of trans stuff, all kinds of everything. The free sexual movement, let me rephrase it and say it like that. The free sexual movement has come into the Church in America so that there is no more strong stand against free sexual anything in the church. Up to and including leadership in the Church. Why? Well, because it’s a woke ideology, and it’s a tolerant ideology. We’ve got to be tolerant of all people, of all sexes, of all colours, all creeds, all everything. Right?
So, the Church in England, he was talking about, the Church in England is doing one of two things. Either they’re accepting this worldwide movement and they’re letting it happen. Or if they’re a Church that still believes in the basics of the Bible, they’re just keeping quiet, hoping that they can be a strong, steady church, but fly under the radar. So, if the Church loses its identity in any nation, what’s going to happen to that nation? It’s got nowhere to go but down, because the immorality that is, the Church permits will be permitted in the nation. Right?
There’s only one force on the earth, on the planet that can prevent the whole world from completely plunging into darkness. It’s the Church. It’s not governments with moral standards because governments don’t have moral standards. Their moral standard is as much power as possible and will do it through any means possible. And they’ll break the law that they uphold and the constitutions they uphold. They’ll break it to get and stay in power. So, the governments are not going to do it. Who’s going to do it? The Church has got to do it.
So, what’s the biggest onslaught that is going to happen on the earth today? It’s got to be against the Church. Because if the Church is the only thing that’s still standing on a capitulating society, then the enemy’s got to go after the Church. And he doesn’t have to have to try hard. He’s just got to put enough in your face, mind-cluttering stuff, on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube, through the news, through movies, through any kind of entertainment, music, whatever it is. He’s just got to keep bombarding all of us with this all the time and we just accept it as the normal.
So, I started this whole weekend saying, “Do we want to be normal? We can do normal things, but we don’t want to be normal. It’s not our business to be normal. It’s our business to be spiritual. We must be spiritual while we’re doing normal things.” Again, I’m just covering a little bit of ground here, but I hope you, maybe last night or this morning had some kind of hygiene exercise. Brush your teeth, wash your hair, put a bit of nice smellies on before you come in here. That’s a normal thing to do. Right? But just because you’re doing normal things, doesn’t mean we must be normal like everybody else and do what everybody else is doing that’s normal.
On the contrary, we have to guard ourselves. We’ve got to watch ourselves that we don’t get taken by normal, that we don’t get taken by normal. Matt, are we ready to put that thing on that I sent you? Can you stick it on the screen for me, please. I’m going to stand on the side here. I mean, some of you will know this already, but this is our church. We have a mission and assignment like this for every part of our ministry. I’m just going to read it. So, our assignment our overall ministry assignment, and it’s like this for every division, education, missions, whatever. Our assignment is to promote the life of God, to advance the kingdom of God. Just this statement by itself should give us the edge and keep us on track.
So, what’s our job? Our job is to promote the life of God. Everywhere we go, promote the life of God, to advance the kingdom of God. Right. Not the kingdom of men, not the kingdom of government, but the kingdom of God.
Our mission is to touch, teach, and train all peoples to enjoy a positive life experience in every aspect of living through the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and community. By the way, this if you didn’t know this, this has been part of our mission and our guiding force for the last 20 years. Am I right, pastor Christi?. I didn’t write this quickly for the weekend. It’s in that book, The Witness, that I showed you the other day, last night. So, the mandate is to be a church that touches friends with warmth, love, and organizational excellence. I can read it from here, so you can look at it behind me. I can read it off my tablet. I’m standing in your way now. You can read it there too, baby. So, our mission is to touch, teach, and train all peoples to enjoy a positive life experience in every aspect of living through the word of God, the Holy Spirit, and community.
The mandate, be a church that touches friends with warmth, love and organizational excellence. This is already 20 years old. Be a church that is fun. Now I know that there’s been some discussion around the word fun. I’m not against the word fun. I understand that it’s a soul thing, but I like to enjoy cycling. I like to do different things, photography, go to wildlife and I’m going to keep using the word fun for now. Be a church that is fun, spiritually engaging, and promotes an active and participative family. So, I’m wanting you to understand that what we call fun is not disconnected from spirit life. If you have fun that’s disconnected from spirit life, then it’s just what everybody else does. Everything I endeavour to do; I endeavour everything that I do to be part of my spirit life. When I’m cycling, I enjoy Jesus while I’m cycling, I do.
When I’m in the bush and I’m looking for lions and elephants and I like to, I mean some of the people that have cycled with me, I like to show my dominance over creation. When I’m on the bicycle and we ride past cows and I start mooing at them and shouting at them and tell them to run, run, and inevitably they do. Call it coincidence if you want to, but it happens all the time. Am I right, guys? It happens all the time. I just like to talk to the cows and talk to the animals and they run. That’s fun, but my spirit life is always engaged. It’s never switched off, it’s always engaged. If you’re having fun when your spirit life is engaged, it’s going to keep you safe. It’s when you have fun that your spirit man is not engaged that you become just like every ordinary being. Okay.
Experience in order to facilitate biblical lifestyle-oriented communities. Be a church that is a witness of the life of Christ and his kingdom to all people. Be a church that is known for practical inspirational faith-based ministry. Be a church that promotes the gifts, the touch, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Be a church that provides bible-based education, mentoring, lifestyle imaging and leadership development for the believer. Be a church that enjoys active, fervent and consistent authoritative biblical prayer. Be a church that promotes and thrives on sound and song. What do you all think of that? Where’s the corporate people amongst us that like to have mission statements and vision statements and all that kind of stuff? What do you all think about this? Thank you, Christo that was really encouraging that you like it. I heard nothing from anybody else out there I just heard you. Gideon saying what? You also like it Gideon. Zelda what do you think? You think it’s good? Come on Kit? Lovely, thank you. Thank you, Jan. Yeah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
I mean, if we as a church keep doing this, it will save us from becoming a tolerating church. It will save us from the margins of where human lifestyles are taking us. At the same time, it allows us to do things that are normal things. And we are always going to be – how did Jesus put it – in the world, but not of the world. So, this is always the balance that we as Christians have to live with. We have to be in the world, and you are touching people of the world with worldly things, with worldly experiences, with worldly stuff, and we have to stop ourselves from not being pulled into their world. We have to stop ourselves from being pulled into their world. We have to stand strong in our world. Amen. Hallelujah.
So, that is part of why we have MiXchange. So, I was looking through some of our photographs and some of our materials that we have developed as a church over a long period of time, and MiXchange, which is now iXchange. You know, this is not something that started 4 years ago when God said, I will take the children. That just became the vehicle that as the children were coming through, that God, we had a place for them. But iXchange started a long time ago. And there has been a part of what God has called me to, that is different and it is all set out for you in Jeremiah chapter 1.
So, if you are called to this church, you are not called to be an ordinary Christian, a normal Christian. You are just not. You are going to be called to be different. Let me tell you, if you took our church back to Kenneth Hagin’s church and to his ministry, to what Kenneth Hagin was doing, Kenneth Copeland, Oral Roberts, those guys. In the time that they were starting their ministry 50 years ago, 30 years ago, our church would have been probably a fairly normal church, because the way we are doing church now, is the way they did church then.
So, what has changed? Culture has changed. Methods have changed. Seeker-friendly changed. It became everybody wants a big church, everybody wants to be relevant in society, and the way to do it is to speak the language of the world. So, how many of you know, he who controls the language, controls the culture? So, if the church speaks the language of the world, then the church is going to be like the world’s culture, not have its own culture. And then if the church loses its culture, we are in trouble. Come on. We are in trouble.
So, some of you who have been around us a long time will remember this. How many of you remember Untracked? Untracked. We started off and we were for a short time… This was actually a job that was done by the very first, if I remember correctly, yeah, these are people, that are still with us. Some of them have gone different ways. But the team involved – so they put it here as a kind of an edit thing on the front of the magazine – team involved: Pastor John, founder of the magazine. The editor was Alicia Compton. Assistant editor, Matthew Ratcliffe. MiXchange student, Sarah Ratcliffe. And at that time, our other MiXchange student was a girl by the name of Caroline Bulameti. Bulumeti? Bulumeti? Did I get it right the 3rd time? Is it good enough? I don’t know. [Ps Mulusi pronounces it correctly] Hey. There you go. That’s what he said.
So, I mean, this magazine has got a content page, talked about missions, and this was after our first mission strip we did with MiXchangers. You see a guy here with a red head. I saw him before I came in this morning. Where is he? Over here. Mister Willie de la Rey. Where is mister de la Rey? I saw him. There he is sitting right at the back. Hey, Willie, I look at you here, you are much younger then. And there is a one Pat and Sid Jackson here. Sid, you were much more overweight here than you are now, and you Pat. Genugtig. And this Bertus, the only thing is that he doesn’t wear glasses anymore. Otherwise, he looks pretty much the same. And there is a picture of Matthew Ratcliffe here.
I’m going to tell him to scan this in. You want to look at it? I’ll send it to you. No? So that you can talk to all these people and say, “Look at what you look like all those 10 years ago!” And the pastor, is the pastor here? There he is. I looked very young. And I had a few more extra kilograms on me. To be sure. Not that much, but I did have a few. And so, you know, I’m talking about it and I’m saying, this was just a marker for me. You know, there is a testimony in here with the doctors Nico and Amanda. And they have a picture of them sitting here in Malawi. Malawi Lake. Julle het ook jonger gelyk hoor. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
So, you know, let me tell you what happened after Brother Jerry departed. You know, when we went over for the memorial, the week after when we were there, we were sitting around with Joe. Joe, we went actually, it’s a thing that happens in America, everywhere you go, you’re going for coffee or you’re going for lunch or you’re going for dinner or you’re meeting for breakfast or something. It just happens like that. It’s always food involved. Always. Or there’s donuts or there’s something. So, in order to protect myself from my upcoming trip to America, I’ve gone keto. I have. I’ve been on keto for five days or so now, because I can’t afford to go there and eat everything that they’re going to give me to eat. It’s my protection. It’s my shield of protection. Hey, my babes? It was a thoughtful, purposeful thing. I can’t go there and keep eating and doing all that kind of stuff that they want me to do for three weeks because I’ll be triple the size.
Anyway, Brother Joe, he arrives at a lunch there and he’s got a bag and he pulls out a whole bunch of stuff and he says, “John, I’ve been looking through all my stuff and clearing out my stuff,” and he says, “I don’t need this, this is old. Somehow, for some reason, I kept it in my drawer. Maybe you want it?” It’s part of the way that I always kept them informed, kept being accountable to them about what we’re doing in our ministry. So, he gave this to me. I didn’t find this in my drawers. He gave it to me. He said, “I don’t need it. Do you want it?” I said, “Yeah. I’ll drag it back across the waters and take it back home with me,” you know. Untracked.
Untracked. This is a name that Pastor Sharon and I really felt strongly about and I believe that it’s still something to pursue. Because whatever God’s got for our ministry, it’s going to be untracked. You know what untracked – it’s a proper name in the dictionary now and it comes from these people that got taken by Red Bull helicopters, and they’re thrown on top of mountains where there’s no one been skiing on the fresh powdered snow. And they, for the first time, when they jump out of that helicopter and they jump onto the snow, that’s called untracked because there’s no tracks. There’s never been somebody there on that snow. This is the first time. Untracked.
Well, you know, we’ve always felt the Lord has got things for us and some way and somehow, we will be an untracked ministry. We’ll go first. We’ll do it first. We’ll do first things. I want to just seed something into your thoughts. I want us to evaluate. I want us to evaluate. If we can do untracked magazine that can actually become a worldwide e-magazine for young people, young adults; people that would do miXchange. Let’s do untracked and let’s start somewhere. Huh?
So, what do you think it’s going to take to have an untracked magazine that becomes almost like a commercial magazine for sale, downloadable off, I don’t know if Amazon does magazines, but if they do, whoever does magazines anymore, magazine companies, wherever, that it can be purchased, paid for, maybe even advertising. I mean, what would a commercial magazine do? I’m just seeding something into your thoughts. Hey? It will take money. Do you know how many things like this we can do as a ministry? What do you think a vision’s limitation is? Resources. If we put resources, I mean, I’m believing God for resources, but everything you got to do requires money. Everything you got ot do requires human capital, creativity, intelligence, thoughtfulness, planning, money, distribution, functional stuff. Amen. Photography.
Now don’t throw a stone at me when I say this, okay? Are you all with me this morning? You’re with me? Don’t throw stones at me now, but when this book came out, it was like the book at the time, and I read it. Every–just about I mean, most of the church people read it, and it came out at around the the year 2000 when everybody thought the sky was going to fall. For people that are under the age of twenty, they don’t even know what that means and if you’re even twenty-five, you don’t know what that means. But there were a generation of people that when the year 2,000 came round, there was a very real thing that everybody thought the planes were going to fall out the sky.
But there was a man by the name of Rick Warren who wrote a book called The Purpose Driven Church, and of course everybody read that book because everybody was wondering what their purpose is going to be after the year 2000 came by. I don’t want to say too much about it because at that time, around about the late nineties and the early 2000s, was the beginning of the a great movement in the earth, in the church, which is called the seeker-friendly movement. Basically, what Rick Warren was promoting in his book, The Purpose Driven Church, was to become a seeker-friendly church.
So, if you understand this, if you have a church that doesn’t have a healthy spiritual life, what constitutes a healthy spiritual life? A healthy spiritual life is when you as a person and we as a people, meaningfully connect with the Word of God. We meaningfully connect with the Holy Spirit, and we meaningfully allow the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to transform us and for our transformation to touch others. Right? That’s right.
If you eliminate the Holy Spirit out of the Christian’s life, you now have the Word of God, where are you going to find your purpose? Your purpose is going to be, if you’ve been a pastor around, you say, “What am I doing here? People are just coming to church, coming to church, coming to church, coming to church. What are we doing here? What are we doing as something significant?” You can understand many pastors want to know, “What can I do to make a difference?”
That’s what happened to Rick Warren. “What can I do to make a difference?” So, he doesn’t, they don’t believe; they didn’t believe as a movement. They didn’t believe, he came out of the Baptist church, they didn’t believe in the Person of the Holy Spirit meaningfully operating in the Church. They don’t believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They don’t believe in the praying in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, all of those things. Hello?
If you remove that out of the Church, what are you left for? Well, then your next biggest mission that you can do is go get people saved. If the Church is not being effective at getting people saved, obviously, we’ve got to do something different to what we have been doing untill now. So, along came the ‘seeker friendly church,’ and essentially that was what the Purpose Driven Church’s book was all about; how to change the language of the church, how to go after making people comfortable in church, how not to speak Christianese to people in normal everyday life.
How many of you know that sometimes some of that information is good? It doesn’t mean to say everything that he thought was bad. The focus of what he did became something that has undermined and made the Church by and large very tolerant of so many different things. That’s not good. But there are many things that he said that were good. Amen.
I’ve changed some things here and I’ve used some other things that I’ve read in other places, and this is what I want to say. This is how a church can do something different. We can have a more effective fellowship. We can go deeper through discipleship. We can be richer through worship, stronger through serving, healthier through generosity, and larger through evangelism. What do you say? So functional through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, richer through worship, stronger through serving, healthier through generosity, and larger through evangelism. Touch, teach, train. And the last thing we didn’t put in the church thing because it’s something that is an ongoing thing is transfer.
The 4 pillars in which our church is built on is touch. Touch friends, teach followers, train fanatics, and transfer to fathers or transfer to people that have got a strong sense of family. Why? Because you’re not living just for yourself. You’re living for the responsibility of others. So, those are the 4 pillars in which our church is founded on. Still today. 10 years ago, I set a 20-year goal. 10 years ago, I set a 20-year goal, and my 20-year goal was to meaningfully touch 2,000,000 people, to train to teach a 100,000 people and to have and to transfer to 1,000 leaders. That was something that I set 20 years ago, and we’re 10 years into that goal.
Well, over time, certainly, when it comes to our bible schools, we’ve meaningfully touched a lot of people. When it comes to us being on social media and having been on television for some time, who knows how many people we’ve connected with over in those periods of time. You know, I’m somewhat and we somewhat are behind our goals. But like I said to you, for me, the thing was that we need to be meaningful about it and purposeful because I can set any goal.
I want to, you know, we want to touch 100,000,000 people or a 100,000,000 people. You can put any number there, but if you can’t measure it, then what good is it? Right? So, we need to be able to measure it. That’s why, in fact, if I’m thinking about it now, I went 1,000,000, 100,000, 1,000. That’s how I put it. 1,000,000. I want to meaningfully touch, so that we can measure we’ve touched 1,000,000 people. We want to meaningfully teach a 100,000 people, and we want to impact and have a 1,000 leaders so that a 1,000 leaders can help us do the rest of the stuff.
We’re closer to meaningfully touching a 1,000 leaders than we are to the other 2 goals, but I’ve got hope. Part of our problem is we aren’t able to measure through those 1,000 leaders because those 1,000 leaders, a lot of them are in Africa, and to measure how many people they are connecting with is a challenge. Not impossible, but it is a challenge.
But hey, if we get to the end of certainly my passion or my connection. I’m believing that when I leave the ministry, the church, everything – I’m not leaving you. This is not the purpose of – I mean when I go to be with the Lord. And I leave it to all of you and all of you. Then I trust that you will reset the goals for your 20 years. Or your 30 years and I’ll be watching from heaven and like Brother Jerry said on his thing, I’ll be watching there as a father and say, “Hey, check at those guys go.” If the world lasts that long. I mean, who knows how long the earth is going to last? Amen? Yeah. Praise the Lord.
You know, for me, I’ve got people that are 10, 15 years younger than me. It’s important that you all start to play a meaningful role right now. I’ve got people that are 20, 30 years younger than me, that are 10, 15 years younger than the 10, 15 years younger than me. You understand what I’m saying? And so, there are layers of functionality, responsibility, energy that can come and if we all cooperate and work together, this will continue to be a healthy, thriving ministry going forward. And we have got to recognize each, everybody’s age group. We’ve got to recognize what everybody else brings. Some people are going to be prophesying. Some people are going to be dreaming. Some people are going to be seeing visions. Some people are going to be doing business and causing finances to come into the Kingdom. Other people are going to do other things. We all got to function together here. Amen.
Remember what I said. So necessary to the Church is a lofty concept of God that when the concept in any measure declines, the Church with her worship and moral standards declines along with it. The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God – A W Tozer. We cannot afford to surrender our high opinion of God. Come on. Otherwise, put from a scriptural point of view, if we lose the fear of God, we are done. And what’s happening with the church that’s tolerating any kind of moral standard in the church is you no longer fear God. You fear people and their opinions of the church more than you fear God. Amen.
So, now I’m going to just talk for a while about the 3 C’s. I’ve called it the 3 C’s. You could call it the Great Three C’s. Number 1 or the first one is Commitment. When we talk about commitment – now remember what I’ve just read, we cannot lose our lofty opinion of God. Remember that. So, when I’m talking about commitment, you immediately think I’m going to talk to you about commitment, which is your commitment to the church or your commitment to God. I’m not. And I’m wanting you to hear what I’m about to say. You and I need to understand what God’s commitment is to us. If we lose our understanding of God’s commitment to us, then we start to wonder if we’ve got anything that we can live for.
In 1 John chapter 4, part of verse 10 and part of verse 19 in the New Living translation. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 19 We love each other because he loved us first. (1 John 4:10, 19 NLT) If we forget that God loved us first then we forget how to love each other. And sometimes, we become so entrenched in our normal things that we do, that we forget how great God’s love is for us.
I mean, Jesus came to walk on this earth. And He came here leaving His high place that He had with His Father. He left His high place so that He could come and walk amongst us and do ordinary things that people do. At the same time, while He was doing ordinary things, He was extraordinary. When He did normal things that people do, He was completely spiritual. And He did all of that so that He could take our place and die for us because of His great love.
Unashamedly, I tell you this, that the greatest turning point in my life was when I was lying on my bed one day and I was reading in the book of 1 John, and I was reading about the great love of God that He would never leave me, He would never forsake me. And that if I had any fear in me, it was not because of Him, but because He loved me and all love casts out fear. And so, I realized, immediately, if I don’t understand the love of God, I will live in fear. And my whole faith walk changed when I understood the love of God. Everything. Everything today I live for is based on that revelation. Even though I had lots of revelations as a teenage boy growing up, I loved the Word of God, but when I realized how great His love for me as a young father, we had 2 kids, I had no income coming in, I was really depending on Him. When He showed me His love and that He would never leave me and He would not let me hang out to dry if I trusted Him. When I realized that, my life changed. Changed forever. He would never leave me to hang out to dry. As long as I trust Him. Hey, if we keep remembering His commitment to us, then you want to give your life for Him.
John chapter 15 verse 16 in the Message Translation says, 16 “You didn’t choose me, this is Jesus talking 16 “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, I appointed you to go produce lasting fruit. (John 15:16 MSG) So, when Jesus communicated His commitment to us, He declared in Matthew chapter 16 verse 18 18 “….. upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” Matthew 16:18 (NLT) What was He talking about? My commitment, Jesus’ commitment to the Church. I will build My Church on the rock of revelation and hell can’t stand against it because I’m committed to the Church. I’m committed to the people I’m dying for. Forever. Hey, let’s not forget – let’s not forget His commitment to us.
The next “C” is the great commission. So, I want to just read you something that comes from the Barna Institute. So, Barna is a great research organisation in America. This article was based on a survey that was done in 2019. When asked, this is Christians in America, when asked if they had previously heard of the Great Commission, half of US churchgoers, 51% of United States churchgoers, 51% say they do not know this term. It would be reassuring to assume that the other half, who know the term are also actually familiar with a passage known by this name, but that proportion is low. Of the remaining 51%, only 17% of that 51% know that it’s based on scripture.
So, they’ve heard the term the great commission, but they don’t know that it’s actually based on a scripture. They think it’s a church mandate. Meanwhile, the Great Commission does ring a bell for 1 in 4 – now these are people that go to church. That’s not to mention Christians that don’t go to church. So, if you had to do the survey of all Christians in America, this percentage would be much lower. So, it does ring a bell for 1 in 4, though they can’t remember what it is. It rings a bell. 6% of churchgoers are simply not sure whether they have heard this term, the Great Commission, before.
I say to you people, the Church is losing its way. The Church is losing its way. We are wanting to be socially relevant, not biblically powerful. We want to be socially acceptable. We do not want to please God anymore. Talking about the church in general. So, the Great Commission; “Go into all the world and preach the gospel, and make disciples of all people.” That is the great commission. Go into all the world and preach the gospel, making disciples of the nations, of the peoples of the world. It’s the Great Commission. Does that without quoting that scripture, does that sound like what our church’s mandate and mission is? We must do this.
Then the last “C” is a commandment. Do you know that there are 613 commandments in the Old Testament? But when we talk about commandments, most people will think about 10 commandments. The challenge in the church, by and large, is that it’s focused on 613 commandments and not 10. But if you’re a bottom-line person, you want to know what have I got to do next. I don’t know if I’m talking to the right people here? You’ve gone all quiet on me. Hey? There was a bottom line guy like that, he was a businessman, very successful businessman. He was also an expert because of his lifestyle in religious law and he went after Jesus to find out what Jesus would say, and he said this, “36Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses? 37Jesus replied, “”You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40 NLT)
So, He was answering a religious person. So, what does Jesus say to us as born again Christians? What does He say to us? What’s His word to us? A new singular, a new commandment I give to you. To do what? To love one another. How do you do that? As Christ loves us. Love one another.
So, what happens to the church in the world today? The church in the world today is focused on being different based on and this is figuratively speaking. Are you with me? It’s the church as a whole globally is focused on which of the 613 commandments are the most important one to us that we feel is most important. So, you have at least 613 denominations around the world. Jesus speaking to a religious ruler says, “These are the two greatest ones.” Later on, when He’s talking to born-again disciples, He says, “The greatest one.” So, for us, going forward, we must remember that God is committed to our success. Jesus is committed to our success. He is committed to us, people. He’s committed. He is committed to us.
You know, if the Lord will lead me, maybe sometime, I’ll teach you on this. His commitment to us for our success because if you don’t believe that, then you won’t live in faith. Why would you want to live in faith if you’re more committed to believing in yourself to achieve your success, and you’re less committed to Jesus who is on your side? and He says, “I’ll teach you success.” If you don’t believe that, then you are always going to default to yourself for success. You might say, “Well, that’s not so bad.” Well, it’s not going to help you with your trust in God, neither is it going help your spiritual maturity because you’re always going to be focused on what you can do. Along with it comes anxiety, along with it comes depression, along with it comes all kinds of lustful things, and I don’t mean lust just in the term of a sexual thing, desires for life. Amen.
Okay. I’ve got probably half an hour, 40 minutes left. I think you should just stand, shake a le, or at least just turn to somebody and say, “Keep paying attention. The next half hour, 40 minutes is going to be good.” Alright. You may be seated. So, what do you all think? Are you with it this morning? Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory to God.
I really, at some point in time, I really want to talk to all of you about some practical practical ministry stuff. Some of it I can’t share because some things you can’t just tell anybody. And whilst I don’t consider you guys to be anybody, there are many others that would listen to this or hear this and then they would be anybody’s. And, you know, it is just like this, people hear one thing and then they go and talk to someone else on the phone or they or they have a conversation with someone over coffee and then they interpret, and the men will know what I said, “Translate.” They translate what I said in the way they think it is, and then it starts to get distorted. So, there’s a period of time where I can’t afford for anybody to translate what God’s doing here the wrong way. We have to be ready to pursue God. Amen.
Over the last weekend, I’ve referred to this a couple of times, so I’m going to just read it to you. I’ll get through this as quick as I can. Romans 9 verse 20 says, and I’m just going talk about vessels. “²⁰But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” So, are you something that’s been formed? And who are you to say to God, “Why did You make me like this?” ²¹Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?”(Romans 9:20-21 NKJV)
So, if I had to ask anyone of you sitting here today when you get to heaven one day, do you want God to say you have been a vessel of honour? None of us want to actually hear the words; you have been a vessel of dishonour or just ordinary use. Like I said, somewhere along the weekend, “People that have the most talent are often the ones that struggle with this the most because look what I’ve got. Look what I can do. Look what I’m capable of. Look what I can achieve.” So, because they’re so talented, they think that actually they don’t owe God anything. Not believing actually that God gave them everything and that everything they do should actually be dedicated to God. That He chose their vessel to have that kind of gift to it. Because normally gifted and talented people find it very easy to do whatever their gifting is to do. They find it quite easy to get stuff done. So, they don’t have to believe God to do it. Their gift does it for them.
I mean, you know, again, this is, this is going back to my era, but I know the man is famous, so I can use one of it. This would be something that Brother Jerry would use. You know, if you talk about guys like Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali as boxers, I mean, Muhammad Ali was such a talented heavyweight boxer. Remember what they always used to say about him or his family, you know, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. And that was how he actually lived this whole thing. Float like a butterfly. You know, he was like nimble on his feet. Everything was come, come. And he used to dance around the ring like this. Come, come, come, come. You know? And guys used to chase him, chase him, you know, and they would throw punches, and he would ride it and ride it and ride it because he floats like a butterfly. [Pastor John demonstrates how he danced around the ring and gives two punches]. Dish, dish. Sting like a bee.
I mean, Muhammad Ali was so talented that he actually thought the god that he was born to, I don’t know if you know this about him, but his name was Cassius Clay. And he changed his name from Cassius Clay to that of the Muslim god, Mohammed, because he was such a great boxer and he was so good. He he felt that his only association that he could have was a god that he could relate to like Muhammad. So, he called himself Muhammad Ali, because he felt he was like godlike figure. Huh?
You think any of these very wealthy businessmen, billionaires in the world, you think that they’re eager to acknowledge God? No, because whatever they’ve done, they’ve accumulated wealth so easily. I don’t need God for what? My money can get everything for me. I can buy governments, I can buy material possessions, I can buy anything I want to. But God made everybody. God made everybody.
2 Timothy 2 verse 15 says this, 15 be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15 NKJV) So, we must be diligent. Then we will become vessels of honour. 2 Timothy 2 verse 19 to 22. Nevertheless, nevertheless, the solid foundation of God stands having this seal, the Lord knows those who are His, and let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. 20 But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honour and some for dishonour. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified and useful for the master, prepared for every good work. 22 Flee also useful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, and those who call on the name of the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:19-22 NKJV).
You know, I kind of thought for a while, I’m not sure I want to read that scripture, flee also youthful lusts, but this is what the Lord said to me when I was reading the scripture. He said, “John, tell the people that it’s not just the youth that must flee the lust that come with youth. It’s also the older people that learnt lusts while they were young and have continued to live in those lusts. You have to flee from the lusts that you developed in your youth. Otherwise, they will stay with you.”
So, if we are going to do something great together, we have to protect ourselves from lies that the devil will tell us. A lie is this, whatever needs to get done must be done by someone different to you, hey? Whatever needs to get done, someone else, someone different to me must get this done. Because this is not my sweet spot. Someone different must get it done. Not only someone, but you got to do it somewhere else, somewhere different. In other words, I’ll do it, but I’ll do it somewhere different. Not here. You know what? If you say someone different and somewhere different, it means you’re always putting it off on someone else. You’re saying, “Not me. Not me.”
You know, when I first started the church in Joburg and people were just flocking to the church. A lot of the people that came to the church were people that had been in church a long time and had given many years of service to the church. Many, many of those people came from Rhema. So, just remember my background. When I went to Rhema, the Lord said, “Sit and listen for three years, don’t even think about going into any form of serving in the the church. Just learn.” After that, He said, “Alright, John, you can usher.” Well, coming from my lofty position of growing up in the church as a pastor’s son and preaching all my life. I must usher. I’m being I’m being real with you. When the Lord said, “Usher,” I thought, I can do better than that. I should be reading the I should be leading praise and worship, and I should be preaching somewhere at least. Usher? That’s for someone else. I’m called to preach.
What is ushering? I must usher. So, the Lord exposed my pride. The Lord exposed my pride. He said, “John, you going to disobey me and not usher?” I said, “No, Lord.” He said, “Go usher.” “Yes, sir.” So, here is the pastor’s son, Mister Next World Evangelist, the next greatest teacher of all mankind, coming from roots of Smith, Wigglesworth, John G Lake, Oral Roberts. I must go, Usher.
Hey, you know what I learnt? I learnt how powerful it is to serve. I learned how powerful serving is. But serving in such a way that there’s no obvious benefit to me. Bear in mind, it’s easy. It’s easy. You know, people think about it like this, “It’s easy for you to serve Brother Jerry, John, because there’s benefit there for you.” Well, I made sure that the benefits that Brother Jerry offered, I pushed them all to the background because I never wanted it to be a benefit that everywhere he went to preach, those became my contacts. I never ever asked him to pay for anything. I was always willing to pay my own way wherever we went. And a lot of the time I did, we did. Wasn’t a matter of, there’s benefits there.
But when I was an usher, I had to go, I had to leave my wife early with my little kids, and I had to go to church. I used to be there 2 hours beforehand, and we would start preparing the auditorium, and we would do things, and today it would be my duty to go and stand by the toilets. And then on another Sunday, it would be my… And then we would have 2 Sundays on and at that time, there weren’t enough ushers to be able to have enough rotation for 2 services on a Sunday morning. So, if you become an usher, you had to work 2 services. So, my kids, my family would come to the service and they would go home from the service and I’d still be in church.
Hello? I learned to serve. For years and years, I learned to serve. And we still had to get to church half an hour earlier than that so we could all pray together before we went and found out what our duties for the day was. So, when I went to serve, there was a whole bunch of people that were serving ushers there. So, as God started to promote my calling and my gifting in Rhema, and then the Lord permitted me to go and do home cell, then I became multiple home cells leader. Then I became a district leader where there were multiple area leaders and home cell leaders that were under my leadership reporting to a pastor.
So, my influence grew in the church. And then Pastor Ray, you know, he asked me to become Rhema Business People’s Fellowship leader. He asked me to become an elder even though I was in my early thirties. He asked me to become an elder and a board member in the church. So, what happened is that as God was promoting me, because I was willing to serve as an usher, as God was promoting me and He was raising my gift and my calling up, I connected with a lot of people.
So, when I started the church, a lot of those people came to the church. So, what is it that they wanted to do in my church? “I’ll do anything you ask me to do, John. Just don’t ask me to usher. I did that for 10 years.” “So, well, what are you going to do in the church?” “Well, you know, tell me anything. I can teach businessman. I can teach this. I can preach this. I can teach this.” “So, you want a position of spiritual leadership?” “Yes. That’s what I want.” “Well, you should have stayed at the church that you came from. Because you were known there. If you come here, you’re going to start all over again.” “No, John. John. John. You know me. You know, we’ve been together all this time.”
“Yeah, I know, but we were functionally elders together or functionally together. Now I’m in a spiritual authority position. You got to learn to work with me. You got to learn to work with me. The the relationship has changed. You can’t just treat me the same as I was then because now God’s promoted me. You got to treat me differently. Until you learn to do that, I can’t do that with you.” “You mean to say I’ve got to start this all over again?” “Yes.” “Sorry. I’m not. I’m out of here. Oh, by the way, do you know John’s full of himself? You know John, he thinks he’s the next… You know John?” And so, gossip. So, when that happened, the church split. And all those mature Christians that were ushers, that said, “I’ve had enough of serving. I want to be somebody.” They split the church and left.
Another thing that the devil will come to us with is he will say, “You are different.” He will also say, “You are unique, you are completely more wonderful than this church can offer you.” And then he will try and persuade you that actually what you’ve got to do is go to another distant place. I’ve got news for you. There’s something he’s not telling you, and he won’t tell you this, that wherever you go, you’re going to have difficulties. But where God plants you, He’s going to give you grace to go through the difficulties. If you go somewhere else where you’re not planted, you don’t have the grace to handle the difficulties. It’s just difficult. It’s just hard.
So, in The Message Bible, 1 Corinthians 7 verse 17, 17 And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right here, or right there. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life. (1 Corinthians 7:17 MSG) “Hey, Pastor John. Hey, Pastor John. Don’t touch my marriage status here.” I’m not, the Bible is.
To keep you believers from being effective here and now, the accuser will often tell them these kinds of things. God could use you if you had a better education. God could use you if you had a better pastor or you were in a different church. God could use you if someone would just give you a big opportunity. God can only use people who are smarter than you, speak better than you, sing better than you. God could use you if you were in full-time ministry. God could use you if you were younger or maybe if you were older. He doesn’t quite care what he accuses you with or what lies he tells you. As long as you believe it. Or if you were single or if you were married. Or if you didn’t mess up as much as you did in your past life, so you didn’t have to carry all the baggage with you into your future life, because now maybe you don’t have the level of integrity that you think you should have if you were to be in the ministry or to serve in the church. Let me tell you. The accuser has got so many different lies that he can tell every one of us, and he keeps us all tied up and knotted up in all kinds of nonsense.
So, I’ve got news for you. I’m going to read you a couple of scriptures and a few quotes and then I’m done today. 16 You saw me before I was born. This is Psalm 139 verse 16, 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your Book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed (Psalm 139:16 NLT). Do you know that your presence here today, your presence here today has already been recorded in His Book about you? Jeremiah, and this is part of my calling, Jeremiah 1 verse 5, 5 I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born, I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1:5 NLT). Galatians 1 verse 15, 15 But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by His marvelous grace (Galatians 1:15 NLT).
Second Timothy chapter 1 verse 8 and 9, 8 …. God 9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began (2 Timothy 1:8-9 NKJV). If we think that our life is just a few haphazard decisions, think again. You are no accident. Ephesians 2 verse 10 in The Passion Translation says it like this, 10 We have become His poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny He has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it! (Ephesians 2:10 TPT) Amen. Praise the Lord.
So, before Brother Jerry went to go to heaven, I spent a lot of time before the Lord. And I wrote him a letter. And in my letter, the email that I sent him, I outlined what I thought God was wanting to do through our ministry going forward. And I gave him a lot of time to read it, meditate on it and pray over it. And then I asked in November last year, I asked God to create an opportunity where I could have a conversation with him. It was out of the normal responsibilities of ministry and life. Because it’s important what he says. It was important to me then what he said. And so, God arranged for me to have a three-hour aeroplane flight with him, him and me alone, and I talked to him about many things. God gave me the opportunity, and on that flight, Brother Jerry, we got a few things settled and, he said, “John, I bless you in everything that you have in your heart, everything that God is calling you to do.” There were some things that he was still wanting to do for me that never got done. I was going to always leave it up to him and the timing of it, but it never got done before he went. God knew that. I’m not fussed about that. Amen
But I’m glad that I had that conversation with him before he went and he said, “I bless you, John. I release you into the things that God has for you.” So, he knew at that time that whatever God had called us to do together, I was never going to compromise that. But I want to tell you just briefly about a conversation. I recorded it, actually, I recorded it. Brother Joe recorded it on a device, I recorded it on my iPad, and it was in 2015. I was with him in Toronto in Canada, and we sat in the reception area and I recorded it and we had a conversation. But the essence of our conversation was this. You know, he recognised that because I lived in South Africa and because there were different things that happened in the ministry over a number of years, there were things that needed to get done that hadn’t yet been done.
So, he said and so I’m glad I have the recording of it. The sound is quite poor. I’ve considered playing it to you, but it is a conversation between him and I. At some point, he was addressing the church here, but because the sound was bad and it was in a public place, I just didn’t feel like it would do it justice. But, you know, he essentially, he was saying, “John, we going to work together from this point onwards, and we’re going to do everything that should have been done that hasn’t yet been done.” And, you know, before I even came into the ministry, God had already put it in my heart to be active in Africa. When I was an executive at Hewlett Packard or High-Performance Systems as it was known then, Hewlett Packard, my responsibility as part of my responsibility of what I was to do was to develop new businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa.
So, I had to develop partner channels and contacts and government opportunities and things like that from Kenya downwards in Sub-Saharan Africa. That was part of my responsibility. I had sales people employed, channel managers employed, to go and do that. God had already prepared me to be able to… (Pastor John’s timer goes off). How about that? Right on time. I’m just about done. God was already showing me the way. I mean, I flew sometimes on business from Johannesburg to Blantyre, Johannesburg to Lilongwe, Johannesburg to Lusaka, Johannesburg to Botswana. I mean that’s a drive, you know, to Gaborone. Sometimes we would go up further North to Maun, and to other places. I mean everywhere God was sending me on business into Africa.
I had a Portuguese-speaking salesperson that went into Mozambique, and we went and did some big deals in those days in Maputo. Because we had a Portuguese-speaking salesperson who also went into places like Angola and those kinds of places. That was my job. I was paid by the world to get experience of what God was calling me to do in ministry. So, when God called me to be with Brother Jerry and God told Brother Jerry that he was called to 11 different African countries. Well, that excited me because I already knew that’s what I was going to do. Hallelujah.
So, that’s not going to change. That’s not going to change. It’s always going to be part of what we do; is go cross borders into Africa to go and preach the Gospel, disciple the nations. That’s what we’re going to do. I believe with all my heart, I believe this, that as we are getting ready in this season, that we are going to have young people that are going to feel called to go and do that. The call of God is going to come upon their lives to do that more actively, more permanently. So, that’s you, Sunelle, and she’s saying, “No, no, no, that’s not me, Pastor John.” I know it’s not you. I did that on purpose because you see, I know Sunelle and I know she’s not going to do well in the Bush somewhere in a village, not showering for 2 or 3 days. No hairdryer to do her hair. Right? I mean, I know she would say, “If God calls me, I’ll do that.” But I know that’s not where her passion lies.
But I know there are others amongst the young people like that are that way. I mean, I think Quinien is like that. I think Quinien is just waiting for God to say, “Go, Quinien.” And Pat and Sid, they’re just waiting for Quinien and for me to say, “Let’s go.” And then we’ll all go. You know, when we started our mission, they used to go around with tents and caravans and stuff and go and camp in villages. The most remote villages, places. Really! And they loved it. They still love it. They’re a bit older now, so I say, “You can’t camp anymore, you’ve got to go and stay in chalets and hotels.” And I know they always fuss with me a little bit about that because they still like the camping thing and they want to go to the villages. But I’d say, “No, no, your age and what you are, let’s make you more comfortable, and let’s make you have a longer life on doing that, by doing it better, more comfortably.” Amen.
We’ve put some other things in place that we didn’t have then. Like if an emergency develops, we can send a helicopter to go and fetch them. We’ve got health coverage, insurance coverage. We’ve got things that happen when they go into, we’ve got emergency contact facilities through Garmin. We’re going to buy a Starlink. So, whoever goes into Africa, we can do emails everywhere, phone calls everywhere. Thank you, Elon Musk. Amen. Hallelujah.
So, that’s not going to change. I do believe, around the world and I’m being vague about this on purpose. Around the world, God is going to raise up this ministry that iXchange is going to be a proper, proper ministry to all of the young people throughout the world. I believe that there are going to be Heritage of Faith churches. They may not be called Heritage of Faith like this, they may well be called Heritage of Faith, but there will be many churches around the world that will be connected to this church. Because everything I’ve been telling you for the last 2 days, they are desperate, the world is desperate for somebody to be not-normal. Who knows how to behave normally but not be normal, to be spiritual while being normal.
You know, people can say, “Well, we’re going to do that.” But let me tell you, this church and what we have here has had to be the first of many. You have to do it somewhere first before it can be many. There always has to be a first fruit that has to come before there can be many. And Jesus was the first fruit so there could be many. There has to be someone that does it first that says, “Look at us. This is the church that we are. Now we can take what we are somewhere else.” You can’t take what you’re not, somewhere else. You can’t go and stand in a pulpit somewhere and say, “I’m just going to go and preach what we are.” You’ve got to be what you are, and then you can preach what you are.
For too long, the Church around the world is sick and tired of preachers that know what to preach, but they don’t know how to live what they preach. Which is why I’m so grateful and thankful, it was probably the biggest issue I had as a young lad growing up. Was what I saw in my home was different to what was being preached in the pulpit, unfortunately. So, I grew up with a passion to be authentic, integris, oneness. Now I know it’s also called holiness. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
So, “Pastor John, here is 50 Million rand. 50 million rand. Go do what you want to do.” You want me to tell you what I would do? I’ll tell you a little bit of what I would do. I’d go buy a farm. I’d immediately, like yesterday, I’d go across the road here and I’d make sure that our first house that we bought as a community centre, I’d develop that and make that happen as quickly as possible. I mean right now, where there’s still a legal issue with us, and I wouldn’t even care about what the legal thing is, I’d just go get it done.
Let me tell you what else I’d do. I’d buy probably 3 or 4 more cameras with more lenses, and I’d make this ministry into a far more technologically orientated ministry than it already is. I’d look to buy more properties so we can turn them into studios, and I’d put cameras in the studios and I’d have all of these young people with all of their gifts and how they want to tell the people around the world. I’d put them in front of cameras and say, “Go talk to the people at university. Go talk to the people that are coming out of high school. Go talk to them. Talk to them on television. Talk to them through whatever they’re going to connect you with. Go talk to them.” Because what’s happened over the last 3 or 4 years is these young people have become something. Go and teach them what you’ve become. Go and set the standard of what you’ve become and let someone have the hope of what they can become.
Then I’d go and buy some other auditorium somewhere down here, and I would turn it into a place where only young people are permitted. Yeah. I would. Because I’ve got young people that I can trust that when they go there, they’re not going to become what the young people say you must become. They will hold the standard high of what we are and it will draw young people. I’d go into Africa and I’d buy houses in Africa. One house in each nation where we could have a – in some of the nations, not all of the nations, but some of the nations – where we could have a base. Where any of our missionaries from anywhere in the world that are connected to us could go and operate in that country from a base. How big is that dream? And I’m only giving you the tip of the iceberg here. These are things that I think we can do right now.
I’ll tell you what else I’ll do. I’ll go to other nations, western nations. That’s all I’m going to say for today. Western world nations, I would go there and I would do what God tells me to do there. And I wouldn’t worry if their currency was euro or pound or dollar. Because even at 50 million that would take a bit to get that done. Amen.
So, Pastor John, what is it with the 50 million? Because I have to raise the standard with you now. And I want to tell you, honestly, I don’t want to buy a jet. I don’t want to buy an aeroplane. I don’t want to start an aviation department, for now. If I’m going to start an aviation department, it’s going to be with a Caravan or with a Beechcraft or one of those that can fly into Malawi or fly somewhere with a whole bunch of people with food, with supplies, and it would be a sub-Saharan African aeroplane. Wouldn’t be my jet so that I can fly around the world. Are you with me? Because that’s not what God’s called me to do. That’s what He called Brother Jerry to do. It’s not what He called me to do. Amen.
So, if you’re sitting here and you’re saying, “Pastor John, thank you for sharing this vision. How long have you had it?” Long, long, long time. “So why haven’t you shared this with us before?” I’ll tell you why. First thing is I was always honouring the leadership of my apostle. Always. And he was always going to be the one that was going to take the lead, especially in the same areas that God called us to Africa. And wherever I could go with him, he was always going to take the lead. And whatever God told him to do with his ministry in those countries was always going to be what took the lead. Amen. Secondly, because ours is a church-based ministry, there needed to be enough disciples and people in our church that would walk with me because I’m not supposed to do this on my own. We are supposed to do it as a church. And it’s one of the great confidences that I’ve had for years and years and years. I’d say at least the last 10 years. It’s been a great confidence for me that whenever I went overseas, I could leave Pastor Sharon and Pastor Christi in charge, and there would be no division in the church.
I wouldn’t have to wait for a message when I’m overseas somewhere, running around the world with Brother Jerry finding out that Pastor Christi is telling all kinds of people in the church about all kinds of things that I’m doing, and half the church is upset now. And I’ve got to fly back to come and undo the stuff that she’s been talking about. Thank you, Pastor Christi. Thank you, Sharon. I mean, and there’s others that God is raising up now that as we go forward, God is going to put them in a position where we can trust them. Amen.
So, that’s what’s happening to me now. God is saying, “John, you’ve got to have more people.” More people that can be administrative, more people that can be business oriented, more people that I can trust, that I can delegate stuff to, that no matter where I am in the world, I know they’re going to follow what God has told me to do. I’m also much more confident in doing that now because over the years, God has sifted people that would turn on me. Number one, number two I’m also more confident about that now because we’re in the time of God, and this is the launching pad of the time of God for where we’ve got to go.
You can have everything in place, but if it’s not God-timed, you’re got to be out of step. So, we are going to flow with iXchange ministries worldwide. We are going to flow with community centres wherever God would have us. We are going to flow with a ministry of digital messaging around the world, and we are going to take ecclesia to the world so that the world knows what an ecclesia is. [Congregation] Yes. Yes.
So, what you’re getting from me today, today and now, this season, you’re getting confidence. Confidence. I have confidence that the time is here. I have confidence that the authority of God is resting upon me. I’ve got confidence that my father, before he left, I don’t want to say, “I had an Elijah moment with him.” An Elisha moment with him, but it was not a coincidence that God said I’ve got to go and spend the time with him in November and can I please have those hours with him? And, yes, God made it happen that him and I, and then a few months later, he’s gone. It’s no coincidence about that.
Praise the Lord. I want to let you into, I’m going to just share something personal with you here. That when Brother Jerry went to be with the Lord, I mean, it surprised all of us in the way and the timing. Like, you know, when you get a phone call, what? He’s gone. It’s almost unbelievable because we’ve come so long together and his vision was still so strong and he’s, you know? Right? And so, you just don’t expect that it’s already there. It’s done. You know, you don’t expect that. But Pastor Sharon is my witness. She’s the only one that witnessed because she was the only one I ever said it to because it would never have come out of my mouth to anyone else. But from about 18 months ago, I started saying to Sharon. I said, “Sharon, I’ve got to spend more time with Brother Jerry. I got to make sure that our things are together. We are in unity. We are in agreement because I feel in my spirit it’s not going to be long. I feel in my spirit it’s not going to be long.” She’s the only one who witnessed that. And if she had ever asked me and she would say, “How long, John?” I would say, “I don’t know, babe, but it’s not far away.”
But here is why I would be careful even my words with hers because Brother Copeland was saying, “I’m going to live to 120 and Jerry’s going to live to 110 and then we all going to go together.” I’m not going to speak against what he was saying. Number 1. Number 2, even though Brother Jerry didn’t say that himself, Brother Copeland was always saying that. He always said, “I’m going to live like Brother Hagin lived. I’m going to live long and I’m going to live satisfied and when I’m satisfied, I’m going to go.” So I don’t know when that is. But in my heart, the Holy Spirit began to just bring me to that attention. “It won’t be long, John. It won’t be long, John. It won’t be long.”
So, even though Brother Jerry had been authorizing me and I came home December, January, I was ready to go because he had blessed me and he said, “You can do what you have to do, John, and I’ll be there for you and we can do this.” You know. I just had brakes on. It was like, can’t go yet. Thank God because when he left, our walk together was there till the end. He was always my highest priority until the end. I just want to say this in closing to you. It’s an amazing thing, you know. God gave me a revelation about authority and submission to authority, which we now call honour and accountability. When I submitted to Pastor Ray, when I knew I was right and he didn’t even ask me my opinion, when I submitted to him, God taught me. God taught me about authority and submission to authority.
When God called me to Brother Jerry, both Brother Jerry and I had our first conversation that we had after he called everybody in the pastor’s lounge to witness that God had called us together. First conversation we had, “John, you realize nothing happens until Pastor Ray, my friend Ray, gives his blessing on this relationship.” I said, “I know it Brother Jerry.” I said, “Brother Jerry, I didn’t know why, but God had me 4 weeks ago already set up an appointment with pastor Ray.” The only time he could give me was 6 weeks from the day that I started asking for the appointment. And so I’ve got 2 more weeks to wait until I see Ray. I didn’t know why I needed to set the appointment. I didn’t even know what I was going to say to him, but I already asked for the appointment. So that when 2 weeks later I could go and see Ray, and Ray said, “John, you have the blessing. You go work with Jerry Savelle.” He asked me a question. He said, “Are you leaving the church? What do you do?” I said, “No, sir. You’re my pastor. I’m going to go and work with Brother Jerry and for now, you are my pastor. These things should not change.”
Then even when I was in Brother Jerry’s ministry, we were there and then the time came when this church, God wanted us to take this building, this church. And I went to Pastor Ray and I said to him, “Pastor Ray, I’d like you to bless me out of this church.” First of all, Brother Jerry confirmed it after 30 days of prayer that we must do this. And so, then I said, “Well, now I’m going to go to pastor Ray, and I’m going to ask him to release me and to bless me.” So, I went to Pastor Ray, and I said, “Pastor Ray, will you please bless me out of the church?” He said, “Yes, John. Just tell Pastor Lynn.” Who was the pastor on duty that day. He said, “You tell Pastor Lynn.” On the day, the Sunday, that he said he was going to do it. “You tell pastor Lynn that we’ll do it.” So, Pastor Lynn had us come and sit, my whole family, on the front of the church so we were ready.
I asked God. I said, “God, I don’t” because this was the habit of what Pastor Ray used to do if there were people that he blessed out of the church. He would dismiss the service, then everybody would come stand on the side of the platform by the exit door. There was a single exit door there, and he would just come and quickly pray over people. Because he didn’t, I understand this. He didn’t want to make a big thing of people leaving the church. Even if he was blessing them. Hey. I mean, I understood that. So, I said to the Lord, “But Lord, I have an authenticity and an honest walk with You about my submission to my pastor, and I’m asking You that this is not a private release, but a public blessing so the whole church knows that I’m not going out of order.”
On the Sunday morning that that happened, all hell broke loose in that church because that was the Sunday that pastor Ray chose to announce that after 6 weeks of being divorced to his wife, Pastor Lindy, he was remarrying another woman. That Sunday morning that he released us out of the church. But here’s what happened, he cut the praise and worship short in the church service. And then between the praise and worship and calling up a preacher to come and make this big announcement, in between that, he comes onto the stage and he says, “John and Sharon, Brynn, Garth come. I want to pray for you.” In the whole church. He stood in front of the whole church on that morning, and he said, “I bless you into the ministry. I bless you into the work that God’s called you. I bless you, and we as a church will support you. You ask us anything you want us to do, and we’ll stand by you. You go do what God’s called you to do, John.” In front of 5000 people. We went and sat down, and 30 minutes later, he’s announcing his remarriage to another woman after 6 weeks of being divorced.
I’m just sharing stuff with you that when you have a walk with God, God will honour you in your accountability to Him. No matter what the circumstances might look like. No matter what things around you and other people have got to say about it. God will honour you. And so, these things have happened in my life where the timing of God is like, could it be any more perfect? Because before he blessed me, I was an elder in the church. Before he blessed me out of that service, I was still the director on the board of his ministry. But on that day, when he prayed for me and I went and sat down, in that moment, I was no longer a board member, I was no longer an elder, I was nothing but someone that he was connected to. If he had made that announcement half an hour earlier, I would have had responsibility for the announcement. God delivered me from the politics of that.
So, let me tell you that when I went to America and I had this conversation with Brother Jerry, in November last year, you know what God said? He said, “John, in everything, you have obeyed Me, you have honoured Me, you’ve been accountable to Me, you’ve walked with the ones that I’ve put you with, and now, I’m going to make sure that your timing is perfect. You will have the conversation that your heart desires. You will have the blessing that your heart desires. You will have all the things that your heart desires. And when he goes,” I didn’t know that then, but now I know, when he goes, we will be in the right order of God and he says, “Go, John.”
Heritage of Faith, let’s go together. It’s time to run. Going to ask you for one more thing before I read the last three quotes. I’m going to ask you for one more thing. I want to ask you to write down your highest expectations, your personal expectations, and what you think the ministry’s expectations should be for the next 24 months. 24 months. You can go 24 months, 48 months, 72 months. Whatever you want to do. But I’m wanting us to look at a 24-month window.
So, I believe this is the wisdom of God for us. Certainly for me. Okay? If I’m going to fly to other countries in the world, I’m looking at what God can do in 24 months. If we’re going to do cross-border stuff, 24 months. What can we accomplish in a community center with an education system? 24 months. What are we going to do with technology in this church and technology in our ministry? 24 months. What can we accomplish in 24 months? Then we’ll go 48 months and see what we can accomplish in 48 months. Amen.
Well, part of it is because if you hear me now, I’ve got young people. For young people, 24 months is a long time. No. I’m telling you, this is the beginning of their life. 24 months is a long time. I want to be so full of the stuff of God for 24 months that they can’t keep up with the stuff that God’s got them busy with. Not only that, that if they choose to be here, God’s going to fund them and the finances are going to flow to them so everything can happen that needs to happen. And I believe that in their business, in their life, in their doings, and in their goings, and in all of what they do, they are going to be so busy for God, and God’s anointing is going to rest upon them. It’s going to activate them, and it’s going to be so powerful on them. They’re going to come with creative ideas and all kinds of stuff, and it’s going to cause all of us to have an energy that just consumes us. For His glory, for His will, for His purposes in the earth. Hallelujah.
For us older people that are more comfortable, let them drag us out of our comfort zones. Come on. Allow them, and why don’t you make yourself available to bring your wisdom, your experience, your know-how, your understanding of pitfalls in life. Don’t protect them from it. Warn them of it. There’s a difference between warning somebody about something and protecting them from it. If you protect them from it, then they don’t have a chance to grow. If you warn them about it, they’ve got choices to make. That’s what we have to do as more experienced people, is guide them, lead them, warn them, but let them run.
Okay. Are you with me? I’m believing God for R50,000,000 in 24 months. “John, Pastor John, that amount seems unbelievable.” If I thought I could do it, I wouldn’t have faith for it. I would just go get it. Amen. So now, I’m telling you, I’ve released this to you. If you want to be part of it you can just go before the Lord and say, “Lord, this is my vision. This is my assignment. This is who You called me to. I’ll be the vessel. Send the money. I’ll be the vessel. Send the assignment, send the purpose, I’m here. Let’s go do this.” I’m believing that this auditorium, and I’m just using this as a visual, this auditorium will be so full of new Christian converts, young people, old people, so full of new Christian converts, we’re going to have separate services to teach them discipleship courses. Amen.
Leonard Ravenhill, the famous evangelist, Leonard Ravenhill said this; The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity. Huh. The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity. Hey, come on, people. This is how I lived with Brother Jerry. The opportunity of my lifetime was to be with him and I had the lifetime of that opportunity. I took full use of it. Now, it’s a new season.
Charles Spurgeon. I’ve referred to him already this weekend. Charles Spurgeon said this; “Now” is the watchword of the wise. Now. Let’s do it now. Let’s do it now. Now, faith is. Now. I’ve also quoted this man this weekend, Vance Havner; The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs. And this man, Mr Douglass, he said this and my last statement; I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. In other words, faith without works is dead. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen.
We have come to the end of our weekend together. And I believe the Lord has had His say this weekend. Touching the dream. We are touching the dream. We are living in the dream. We are ‘now-people’. We are ‘now-people’. We are ‘now-people’. Hallelujah. We are ‘now-people’.
I had this moment with the Lord, I said, “Lord, all these things You are putting in my heart, where does my bush adventures fit in? Where does my cycling adventures fit in? Where am I going to have time for this?” This is what the Lord said to me. He said, “John, you put those things before Me, you plan those things, I’ll make it all happen.” He said, “That is the favour of God. My favour that is on you now… Just like Brother Jerry, I gave him things to do that he would enjoy and turn ministries out of them.” We are going to have ministries that are based on things that we can have adventures together, enjoyment together. We’re going to not just only be serious about stuff. We will be that, but we will also have a lot of things where we will enjoy fellowship. Sweet, sweet fellowship. Amen. Praise the Lord. Won’t you all stand with me, please? Hallelujah.
So, next Sunday morning Pastor Sharon’s going to be preaching. She’s got lots of vision stuff to talk about. Whatever God gives her to talk about. It’s amazing. God’s dreams. She’s going to preach on God’s dreams. Praise the Lord. And so, because I’ll be in the USA next weekend, I’m going to go and do Chariots of Light, I’m going to go and do the Honour Tour that we’re doing for Brother Jerry, the last tour that he wanted to do. We’re going to go and ride that tour. So, praise the Lord. There’s a few people coming with me. I’m grateful for that. So, Pastor Sharon is going to be doing the ministry.
We bless you, Sharon. We bless you. All of us bless you. And we say speak under the anointing and under the blessing of the Holy Spirit. May everybody have ears to hear and hearts to receive those things that will come through your vessel which I declare, and I know, you are a vessel of honour before the Lord. Yes. Amen. Amen.
For all of you that have been here this morning and have given your energy, your time, you’ve invested, you’ve invested in this today – I ask the Father to bless you. I ask the Father that no weapon formed against you will prosper. I ask the Father to increase you, that He will cause your life to be overflowing with abundance and with fruitfulness, fruitfulness, fruitfulness in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah. May His peace be upon you, His peace that only He can give you, in Jesus’ name. As you travel to wherever you’re going to travel, be protected. Drive safely and with wisdom and understanding, in Jesus’ name. Amen. All of you today, here, agree with me saying; amen. Thank you for coming. Enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy fellowship. Enjoy good health. Enjoy God. Bye, y’all.
© 2024 – Heritage of Faith Ministries International
TOUCH | TEACH | TRAIN | TRANSFER
