29th March 2026: Building People In

Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South

Australia. So when we pray for Dave as he

brings the word Lord that may it also just may your spirit just

bring it alive to us today in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. Thank you, bro.

My name's Dave. Yeah.

With my wife Hilary, we lead the, the team that leads the

church here. Justin and Bianca are eldership

couple. There's.

Four of us so. Who's got their their Bible with

them this morning? Let's get our Bibles out.

We have, we've been, we've been pushing this.

We're going to continue not to be pushy, but just to, we want

to build a culture of bringing our Bibles, getting familiar

with the text for ourselves, being able to dig in here, being

able to find things. I know a lot of you use your

Bible apps and stuff like that. That's fine.

I love a paper Bible. So what I'll do this morning is

when I bring a few scriptures, I'm going to actually turn there

and just give you guys some space to find it for yourselves.

I think sometimes we can just rush through that.

So that's what we want to do. So we're going to have to be

patient in that because it does take a little bit of time to

find it. So I had the privilege this week

of going and seeing the Great Ocean Road for the first time.

And I know many of you that I've spoken to have seen that road,

been driven down that road. What a beautiful part of

Australia, right? It just, it reminds you of how

blessed we are where we live. You know, like quite often when

I think about travelling and going and seeing the world, I

just completely bypass Australia.

I just want to go overseas, right?

Gosh, Australia has some beautiful things to see.

And you know, we, we, you know, you've seen the coastline and

stuff. I've got a couple of photos that

we're going to share in a moment.

Not just yet, but you, you can't see such spectacular views and

not be drawn towards the Lord. Like as a believer, you know,

I'm travelling with some other guys that are, that are pastors

that are, you know, they're believers and we're just looking

at each other, just going, Oh my goodness, like the, the majesty

of God, the power of God, his creation.

It's so stunning. You can't not see God's mighty

hand when you go and look and we don't have to go far.

You don't have to go far to to go and and look at nature and

see God's mighty hand, right? But I was just reminded of

Romans 120. So if we can turn there, please

Romans one verse 20. If you guys beat me there, it's

because I'm doing it one handed, right?

Romans one verse 20 it says how we doing very good.

It says for since the creation of the world, his invisible

attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things

that are made. Even his eternal power and

Godhead so that you are without excuse.

You know, that's saying that like those that it's like every.

Single person that can see that can witness God's creation is

without excuse to reject the Lord and his creation.

Isn't that wonderful? I mean, it's wonderful for us,

but like it's just so stunning that you could just see God's

mighty hand and and power and Godhead in all that he's made.

And I would encourage us to go and regularly do that, you know,

go down to the coast, go and watch the ocean.

See how vast the ocean is. Go and go look at the tree close

up, look at it leaf, turn it over and look at the veins.

Go and inspect this wonderful creation and let it just stir,

you know, just Thanksgiving and glory to the one who made it.

Amen. And so anything that's built of

any, of any substance, you know, like you look at these, the

creation, you look at what God's made, It's so it's got so much

substance, but it's, it's, it takes consistency to build

something with substance. You know, God speaks and things

come to fruition, right? We're, we're not God.

Like if I'm going to build something, it's going to take a

lot of effort. You know, like I'll watch my

boys build with Lego and stuff like that.

It's such a step by step process and it takes consistency.

So I'm saying all that just to bring that word to our, to our

minds, consistency. It takes consistency to build

anything of any substance, OK. And, you know, consistency

requires patience. You know, there's so much

scripture that talks about we need to be patient.

In order to be consistent with anything, you have to be

patient. So they sort of go hand in hand.

But I've got a couple of photos here just to share with us.

Where where is the first one? What do you got there, Pete?

OK, so this is, I forget what it's called, but it's basically,

you know, you've got the coast obviously here and then you've

got this huge, you know, where the water sort of eroded away

and it's it comes if you show the next photo, this actually

joins with a bit of a cave and this is like, so there's like a

bridge over the top here. And that what we just looked at

is on the other side of that going out to the coast.

And then you've got this little bit of water in here where the

waters just come and just eroded through and it's made a bridge

and it's done all this stuff. And I was just looking at that

and I was just thinking about like the consistency of the

ocean. Can we just go back to the to

the first one, please? Like, you know.

It's funny when you read the signs about this, it's like, oh,

this happened over 20 billion years and I'm just looking at it

just going, I don't think so, but.

Like consistently hammering away at what must have been like a

weak spot in the coastline here and brought it down and then

just consistently just hammered and hammered and hammered away

over over decades or hundreds of years or thousands of years,

whatever it is. And it's made this huge.

This is massive. Like we stood up here and this

was like, this is like a 40 meter drop.

Like it's massive, right? Like the the photos don't do it

justice, but I just like, I couldn't help but just think

about the consistency of water and waves crashing against

something very solid, you know? Earth and just washing it away,

just washing it away just little by little, little by little and

making this huge dent into the into the coastline here.

And the next photo is the is the 12 apostles.

Which you know, there's like 5 of them left or something like I

don't know how many exactly is left.

There's a couple hiding behind there.

But there was 1 here, there was 1 here.

This was obviously this is going to be gone soon.

And I was talking to to Paul. So Paul lives in Warrnambool.

So he's been, he comes through here quite regularly.

He's blessed to have this beautiful coastline to ride his

motorcycle down. A little bit jealous, but we

don't do jealousy. So good for you, Paul.

But, you know, over the time that Paul's been in Warrnambool

for 20 years, he's seen some of these come down.

And I just think, you know, just the consistency of just this

water just hammering and making a little, you know, just

undercut it a little bit here. And then it just goes a bit

deeper and it falls, you know, and, and all of this would have

been joined to this. Coastline at some point, I would

suspect. Right.

And it's these waves and this ocean is just eroded away and

that's what you're left with. And I thought about, you know,

water can't do much on its on its own.

Like if I have a glass of water like it's not really hurting

anyone like I could. Throw it at someone.

I wouldn't never do that, but like, you could throw it at

someone and you know, you might get wet, but it's not going to

hurt you, right? But when it's got some force.

Behind it, water can be very powerful.

You know, we use water to in high pressure cleaners and stuff

like that. You know, there's a such a thing

as a water jet cutter. You can cut steel with water if

it's like, you know, under enough pressure, that's pretty

amazing, right? You can cut steel that's like

that thick. I used to work in this industry,

right, with water, water. And if the so if the right force

is behind it, it can be very powerful, which we see in these

photos. So yeah, maybe we just take

those photos away so that you'll listen to me.

But you know, the momentum behind the waves, it's the it's

the power behind the ocean that erodes these things away.

Very powerful. It washes away mountains.

That blows my mind that water could do that.

And we know from Scripture, if we turn to Ephesians 5 verse 26,

Ephesians 5:26

we we get a bit of an insight into into.

Water or or let's just read it. Hey, Ephesians 5 verse 26.

Ephesians 5:26

So this is let's just read from 25 husbands, love your wives,

just as Christ also loves the church and gave himself for her.

So this is talking about Christ, that he might sanctify her, his

bride, and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the

word, that he might present her to himself, a glorious church,

not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she she

should be holy and without blemish.

So Christ is is it says that it's like water.

He's the word of God is like washing us clean and I just

thought about that. It's like the word of God, like

if this Bible of mine is just sitting on the shelf and not

being used. This is like stagnant water

that's just not able to do anything.

It can't clean you. It can't wash you.

It can't, you know, wash away all of the rubbish and make us

like Christ if it's just sitting there stagnant.

But when we read the word, when we, when we eat of it and when

it's empowered by faith. So you know, the water in the

ocean is empowered by, you know, the currents and the, and the

waves and, and these sort of things.

So the word of God is empowered by faith.

The word of God is powerful through faith.

It's like you're reading it and the only way that it's going to

be able to wash you and clean you is through faith.

That's the power trusting God at, at his word and what he

says. And so again, when we think

about consistency, we need to be consistent in reading the word

of God in the washing of the water.

You will never end up, you know, as that water washed away the

coastline and it did so much. You're never going to be vastly

transformed to be like Christ outside of consistently being

washed by his word through faith.

Isn't that true? And there's people in this room

that have walked a whole lot further down the road than me

and been washed by his word for a whole lot longer.

And they're a lot more mature than me and, and, and they're,

and they're more Christ like than me.

It's not something that you can just get a hold of straight

away. It takes consistency.

It takes reading his words being washed.

It takes being with the Lord and spending time with him, all of

these things. And so we want to be consistent.

And when we are consistent, all of the, the muck, all of the,

you know, all of the lies, all of the things that bind us up,

all of the misdirection and all of these things that life has

taught us or, or we've been bound by.

And these sort of things that the unchristed like stuff, can I

say, needs, you know, gets washed off us and we become like

him. He is perfect, He is awesome, He

is pure. There is no unrighteousness in

Christ at all. And that's what he, that's his

desire and his will for us as a church.

He wants us to be washed clean and made whole.

And so consistency will, will transform us to be like Him.

This is life changing stuff guys.

You know, I've changed so much in a period of time, but it has

been through consistency. It hasn't been like a lot

changed very fast for me. But after that it was like, all

right, now you're going to have to seek me.

You know, I'm going to, I'm going to the Lord sort of just

changed some things that were really tripping me up in my life

that were leading me away from him.

He he cleansed me of those things and he got those things

out the way. But after that it was like, now

come to me now let me wash you now.

Let now now yield to me, you know, be transformed by my by my

word and it changes your your life.

You will not be the same. And it's such a wonderful

change. You would never go back.

I would never go back to be the person that I used to be.

And I know that we're the same in this room, right?

You would never go back and become the person that you were

before Christ came and started to form you and wash you because

it's so wonderful. He's so good.

And so this is the a culture that we want to build as the

local church here, a culture of consistency, of consistently

seeking the Lord, of consistently being washed by his

word. All of these things that we're

talking about, You know, we want to build biblical culture,

culture that's in accordance with his word and, and whatever

it is, whatever The thing is, we need to be consistently

implementing and going after those things and reminding one

another and, and, and over a period of time.

It's not going to happen overnight.

We're not just going to be, you know, a, a church that is

extravagant in our worship and just come together and just

overflow and, and bring the. Roof down.

You know, just because we decided one Sunday that that's

what we want to do, you know, because I, I stood up one day

and said, Hey, guys, we're going to worship extravagantly today.

And everyone goes, OK. And then like that's now the

culture. It just doesn't happen like

that. It, it, it has to be, we have to

be reminded that guys, we, we owe the Lord everything and we

want to give him the glory that he deserves, right?

And so we constantly remind each other and constantly seek to do

that together. And over time, as people come

into that, they catch something of what the Lord's formed us to

be. And so there's many things that

we want to be as a local church, an extravagant worship is one of

them. We want to praise the Lord

freely, not thinking about what people are thinking, not

worried, not not, you know, scared to raise our hands, not

worried to, you know, when we asked us to stand and, you know,

feeling uncomfortable to hell. With being uncomfortable in

worshipping the Lord. Amen.

Get out of here. We are going to be free.

We're going to be a church that's free to worship the Lord

in this place. Amen.

We are that's the that's the church that the Lord is building

here. One of the aspects, right?

And So what sort of church are we called to be?

Justin preached a couple of weeks ago about being a packed

house. You know, the in heaven, it's a

packed house and everyone's giving glory to God and

everyone's enjoying him. And that's that's in heaven.

It's like on earth as it is in heaven.

We're going to be a packed house.

And we want to see that not just so that we have a lot of people

here, but so that we can be effective in in the mandate that

we have as a church in the seeing the gospel get out in

seeing people safe, but not just safe transformed, set on fire,

turn from their old lives, never want to go back.

You know, that sort of that sort of culture.

That's the sort of culture that the Lord is building in this

house, a packed house. And Daniel shared last week

about daily evangelism. All of these things are sort of

leading us towards, you know, Easter Sunday is next weekend.

Easter Sunday is a big deal. A lot of people go to church on

Easter that don't set foot in a church any other time of year.

And so that's that's a big deal. We want to see people come to

know the Lord. We want to see the people

experience something of the goodness of God and heaven on

earth in our midst. So we're going to take advantage

of that, right? We're going to use this coming

weekend as an opportunity and whatever opportunity is

available, we're going to take hold of it.

And that means that we're going to be expecting, we're going to

do what we can to see God, gather some people here that

don't know him, that can get to know him and be saved and be set

free as we have. Amen, Amen.

So we're going to talk into this packed house just a little bit.

It is because like I'm talking about it leading into Easter,

but this is a culture that we want for our house, a packed

house full of people. You know, the, the in the Acts

church, the early church, it says that the, the Lord was

adding daily those who are being saved.

That's the dream, isn't it? For this church, for this local

church, for the church in our city.

That's the dream that this city would experience people being

added to the church daily. And they we probably are, but we

only get to see a small portion of that, which is why

relationship with other churches is important.

Seeing what God's doing bigger than ourselves.

All right, So for for us to grow in effectiveness and number

requires for people to come, but it also requires for people to

stay. And so we're going to talk

around that a bit for us to grow.

I've just said that move on, David.

But we must play our part here. We must play our part in seeing

people come along. We must play our part in helping

people connect, in helping people.

You know, we are a family, this local church, we are a family,

and we want to see people join this family because we love this

family. This is a good family.

The Lord has built a lovely family here.

And I'm not ashamed to want people to come and join this

family because I enjoy this family.

This is God's family. So we want to see people come.

We want to see people stay. And it's going to require us

bringing them along, inviting them along, helping them

connect. And so three points for building

people in #1 invite. We must invite people.

If we don't invite people, they're probably not going to

come extend extending that that wow, have you guys got pen and

paper? Maybe just write that down.

It's amazing, right? Extending an invitation to

people to come is very important.

If I never asked Hillary, my wife out, we probably wouldn't

be married right now, right? Like if we probably, I don't

know, maybe she would, she probably would have asked me

out. No, she she wouldn't have.

This is exactly right. But do we see what we're saying?

Right? Like if I didn't, if I didn't

step out, if I didn't invite, if I didn't ask, we wouldn't.

There wouldn't be no relationship here.

That is the same for everyone. If we don't invite them along,

we will never grow relationship with them.

That's like step one is invite right?

And again, I'm not just talking about this coming weekend.

I'm talking about every meeting. I'm not just talking about

Sunday meeting. I'm talking about community

group. I'm talking about prayer group.

I'm talking about our homes. I'm talking about coffee.

I'm talking about whatever it is that we, whatever way we can

connect with people to build some relationship, we have to

invite them if we're going to be seated with them talking.

It's very important. Can I say that if you struggle

to make friends, these are really good points as well.

There's three points #1 invite someone, invite someone to your

house. If you, if you don't have a lot

of friends, step one, invite someone.

It's amazing. Anyway, so that's step one.

Why do we invite someone to church?

Like, so why would we invite someone to church next Sunday?

I'm going to tell you, God has a plan to reconnect with lost sons

and daughters. That's God's plan.

He, he. But not only reconnect, not only

Jesus didn't just come to reconnect people with God the

Father, he also wants to protect them.

He also wants to provide for them.

He wants to make them whole. He wants to restore them.

He wants them to become what he created them to be.

He wants them to become like himself because mankind was

created in God's image and God wants to restore that.

That's why we invite people to church, because we want them to

be restored to the Lord. And God wants us to tell

everybody how good he is. Like we, we get saved.

God just doesn't want us to keep this to ourselves.

You know, it's like, if you realize how good God is, you

want to tell people, right? So there's a revelation that

needs to take place. You need to know how good God is

and how wonderful he is and how he's transformed your life.

Do you know what you do after that?

You want to tell people, right? That's it's sort of just happens

like, but I think we've we've hit a bit of a a bit of a snare

as the church where we've sort of just we don't seem to be that

excited about being a Christian anymore as a whole.

I'm not not talking about you guys like you guys are excited,

but like the, if you look at the church as a whole, it's just

like, I remember stepping foot in church after a long absence

and I was pretty excited. Like I'm like, yes, like my, my

life has changed. He is good.

This is amazing going to go be with the Christians.

And yes, there was many people that shared that same excitement

and, and zeal for God's house, but there was many that didn't.

You run into a lot of people that would tell you that they're

believers and they're Christians, but they don't seem

that excited about it. They don't even really tell you

about it. It's like it seems that, you

know, they want to talk about their problems and their

hardships more than they want to talk about how good the Lord is.

And so we want to talk about how, how good the Lord is.

We want to be a house that magnifies how good the Lord is

that the first thing that comes out of our mouth isn't how how

much our week has sucked, right? The first thing when we see each

other is just like, oh gosh, it's good to be in the House of

the Lord again. It's good to see you, You know,

how was your week? It's been hard, but man, I'm

glad to be here. I'm glad to be amongst these

people because I know that when I when we come together and we

worship God and when we pray for one another and we, when we,

when we be a family, that I'll leave feeling better.

I leave this place feeling better.

Do you guys leave this place feeling better, feeling

refreshed? We do.

That's one of the reasons that we would invite people to come

because people aren't doing well.

If you're living outside of of Christ and outside of his

blessing and outside of his favour, life is very difficult.

It's hard enough for us, isn't it?

Life is tough. How much more for those who

don't have any hope that don't know Him?

That's why we want these people to come and and see Him and know

Him. So we don't want to keep it

secret. We want to be eager to share

what the Lord has done. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 20, it says

2 Corinthians 5:20

now, then, now that we're saved. We are ambassadors of Christ as

though God, we're pleading through us.

We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

You catch the heart of that. It's like we are crying out for

people to know this wonderful God that we know.

This is why we invite people to church.

You know, church is not a building.

You got to, we got to remind ourselves of this.

Church is not a building, It's not an organization.

It's it's not, you know, somewhere that we gather, the

church is a group of believers that know him, that praise him.

So when you're inviting someone to church, you're inviting them

to be in God's house in the family, to experience something

of who the Lord is that they would that they could look at us

and see him and that they would be engaging with a, a people

that are just longing for people to to see him and to know him.

Amen. It's got to be the cry of our

hearts. This is the church that we're

building here, a Church of people that are desperate,

desperate to see this community saved, desperate to see this

city won and taken for the Lord. Amen.

Hope that there's stirs some desperateness, if that's a word

in our hearts. Desperation.

Thank you, love. Desperation to see the Lord move

powerfully in our city and in our community, Justin shared

Luke 14, verse 23. Let's go there, please.

Luke 14:23

Luke 14, verse 23. It says here that the master

Luke 14:23

said to the servant, go out into the highways and the hedges and

can compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

It's not selective, Justin reminded us.

It's not selective. It's not like because we do

this, I do this. I look at people and I look at

their lives that they live. I look at their interests, I

look at who they are, like people, friends, stuff like

that. And I make a call whether I

think. They would want to come to

church or not. I make a call whether they're

ready to receive the gospel or not.

That is not my call to make. That is not my call to make.

We are called to sow seed to water.

We are called to go and invite all of them.

Everyone just invite, invite, invite, invite, right?

Let the Lord do what the Lord's going to do.

Those that are ready will come. Those that won't, will not.

Those that God's calling to Himself will open their hearts

to Him and be saved. Those that aren't ready will

not, but we are. We are called to invite all of

them. This is just one scripture that

teaches that it must be unselective.

We must be unselective in who we are inviting and call along.

The Lord's desire is for the house to be full is our desire

for his house to be full. My desire is for his house to be

full. Like I, I want my house to be

full. I want to sit around, you know,

at the table and and and have people there that are coming to

know him that I can witness to Amen.

This, this is like this is the the fulfilment of life right

here in our hearts. This is the reason that you and

I are here. If we're living a life that's

unfulfilling, it's because we are not living the mandate of

God because we're not living for his plan and purpose.

We might be living for our own. That would be the reason why our

hearts are were unfulfilled in our hearts.

When you start to take on the Lord's desires and the Lord's

will and his desires that his house would be full if I just

take a hold of that and just go Lord, if your desire is for us

to have a full house, my. Desire is going to be to to see

the house full and because your desire is to see the house full,

I'm going to invite all of the people to come and, and let you

sort through who's who's you know, called to come and all of

the rest of it I'm. Going to be unselective.

You know, we've got some Easter Flyers and stuff like that.

Take some Flyers, start handing them out, give them to your

friends, your family, your neighbors, whatever.

Go put them in letter boxes. I don't know, like we haven't

organized a letter box drop. If you feel like it, grab a

stack and go put some in some letter boxes around here.

Don't put them in the ones that say no junk mail.

OK, So you know, like this is just like these Flyers are just

a way that we can reach out to people.

It's you know, if you're not confident to invite someone

personally, just hand them this and say, Hey, we're, we're going

to have a wonderful time next Sunday.

You should come along, bring your family, bring your friends.

All right, so there's ways that we can do this.

We try to make it easier for ourselves.

Pray over the Flyers, like through faith, right?

We we do pray over these Flyers, pick it up and say, Lord, won't

you call whoever this wherever this landslord, I pray that you

would do what I'm unable to do that you would stir hearts that

you would bring them along and and quote the scripture.

We've been talking a lot about speaking God's word.

Quote the scripture, say, Lord, your word says that your desire

is to have a full house. So I'm stepping out with this

and I'm going to give it with to someone and I'm going to trust

that because it's your will and your desire that you're going to

bring the people in. Amen.

Pray in, pray in, in step with his word, take a hold of his

word by faith as we started speaking about all right, so the

second thing, I feel like I'm taking a long time here.

I am taking a long time. All right, I've got to hurry up.

Second point, serve and connect once people come like our job's

not finished, right? Like we are.

We are people here that are called to serve and connect with

these people. And so we're going to have some

like Easter, we're going to have some fun, We're going to have

some fellowship. We're going to have some food.

We're going to have, you know, an Easter egg hunt for our kids,

all of these things. But if you're a part of this

church, if this is your home, if this is your family, there's no

sitting on the bench here like you're on the team.

Like this team doesn't have a bench.

It's like you just get full game time, right?

There's no, there's no rest, no bench.

We're always working doesn't mean you can't sit down and and

play this game. This is a game you can play

sitting down. Thank you, thank you, Lord.

But we're we're all a part of the team and we're all called to

to connect and reach people that come here.

That means that we need to talk with people.

That means that when you, if you bring some friends along, make

sure that you're just not the only person that's going to

stand there and talk to them. I would trust that we as a

family would take the step to, to go and, and talk to people

that we don't know. I pray that's true.

I hope that's true for our visitors today.

But your job can also be to take them to, to and introduce them

to people. You know, if I, if I bring my

friend Johnny and Johnny loves to eat meat, I will take him to

speak to Dan because Dan likes to eat meat.

This is a silly thing, right? I'm being silly, but common

interests is a way that we can connect people together.

And so, you know, just, it's just one of the ways like go and

introduce them to someone that you think they might connect

with. We're going to, we're going to

obviously have coffee and all those serving in the church.

Connecting with people means offering them coffee.

It means offering them food. It means taking their plates.

It means are you finished with that cup?

Can I take that from you? This is a service class.

This is a way that we can connect with people that God

brings in. We are going to serve these

people. We are going to be a church that

serves not just on Sunday in our community groups, in our men's

group and all of the things. Whenever we're together, we're

going to be a group of believers that serves.

Why are we going to be servant hearted?

Because the Lord is servant hearted, Jesus came to serve.

Matthew 20 verse 26. I'm going to keep moving God.

Matthew 20:26

So I'm just going to read. OK, You could turn there if you

like. Matthew 2026 Yet it shall not be

among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let

him be your servant. Whoever desires to be first

among you, let him be your slave.

Just as the Son of God did not come to be served, but to serve

and to give his life a ransom for many, Jesus came to serve.

And when you read about the life of Jesus in the scripture, you

will see that Jesus was a servant and we are called to be

servants. When people come into the

family, when people come into our meetings, they, they will

see Christ. If we're being Christ like when

we're serving, they see something of the Lord.

Can I say that in a room full of if you had a room full of

believers and people that don't know him, if it was like a 5050

split and we were eating and fellowshipping, we should be

able to see those that know him. We should, you should.

There should be a vast difference between believers who

are seeking to be Christ like and people that don't know him

and don't even know how to be like him, right?

And that means that, you know, that's something of so in

heaven, as in as on earth, so in heaven, it's like people could

experience something of the heart of God when they're in our

midst. And service is one of those

amazing things that we can do. Can I say that our our community

group, we, we love to get together and eat food at our

community groups. Can I say that it should be a

fight to see who goes last, right?

Like a group of believers should be so wanting to serve each

other that no one's even willing to go first.

You do see this if you look for this when we're together, if you

look for this. You will see this, you will see

people that are putting others first look for it because

there's an example here that people set and it's a Christ

like example, people that will. When serving themselves a drink,

if they're thirsty, they go to get a drink, but they will, they

will stand there and they'll go, does anyone else want to drink?

Right. And they'll, they'll pour 5 or 6

drinks before they even get to themselves.

That's service. That's servant heartedness.

That's like when we hand out the plates and because you know,

we've got all this food to eat, it's like you pass your plate

plate on to the next person. These are simple things, guys,

but this is it shows what's going on in our hearts.

If you're handing your plate to someone else so that they can go

first, you are putting someone before yourself.

That is the heart of God that we would put others before

ourselves. Very practical things, but

things that you can see, tangible things, right?

Very special. So we need to example this and

we need to remind ourselves of this.

Don't be harsh. Oh, Gee, I can see that you're

serving yourself there. Like that's, that's not helpful,

right? That's not a, that's not a

heart. That's not God's heart.

God didn't do that to us. Jesus would never do that to us,

right? Jesus exampled and taught.

And so you can hand the plate to someone and say, do you see what

I did there? Right?

Like you can do that. It's OK.

It's stirring us for, you know, a heart of service and worship

to our King. Amen.

It's good stuff. John 1335 says by this all will

know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one

another. It's like people that come in

will know that we are disciples of the Lord because we love one

another. How are they going to know that

we love one another not just because we tell them, Oh yeah, I

love Daniel. Cool.

How would they know? Because I'm going to hand him my

plate, right? I'm going to say you go first.

That's what love is. Love is laying down your life

for someone else. Go and read it.

That's what. Isn't that Jesus's example that

he came to lay down his life for you and I for living for others.

That's what love is. So let's start to example love

when we're together. Amen.

How else did Jesus example service?

I'm trying, I'm really trying to move fast now by washing with

the word. When Jesus was with people, he

spoke life. He he breathed hope.

He spoke words of truth and of encouragement.

Jesus prayed. Jesus prayed for people.

Jesus healed people. Jesus set people free from the

things that were binding them. Jesus sent people away full, not

just in their tummies spiritually full, but Jesus also

sent them away full in their tummies.

Didn't he just the disciples were like, oh, just tell him to

go buy some food. No, you feed them.

You feed them. Why?

I'm not going to send them away and get weary and stumble.

You feed them. This is Jesus teaching and

exampling what the church should look like.

We're going to feed people the word of God.

We're going to wash with the word, word of, of the Lord by

faith. We're going to take a hold of

it, but we are going to feed people.

We have a food ministry here. When we give people bags of

food, you know what we're doing? We're following Jesus's example.

We have food here. We don't charge for coffee.

We don't charge for cakes. And this why?

Because we were told to provide for people and the Lord will

provide for us as we provide for others.

Amen. So this is something of what

this church needs to look like. It needs to be a church that's

preaching the Word, speaking the Word, living out the Word,

praying for one another, seeing people healed, set free.

We are trusting that when people come in here next week, every

week after that today, even if you come in here and you're

heavy and you and you have pain in your body, if you have

illness, we're trusting that in the in God's house, there is

freedom, there is hope, there is healing, Amen.

We stand for that not just because we want that, but

because the word of God says that.

So we will trust God through faith and believe that he will

heal his people, Amen. And he does all right.

This is something of on earth as it is in heaven.

There is no sickness in heaven. There is no depression in

heaven. There is no hunger in heaven.

There is. God provides for His people.

Amen On earth as it is in heaven.

Third Point, follow up. This is probably the most

uncomfortable, I think, you know, it's inviting someone

along. Takes a bit of courage, but you

can do it. Speaking to someone you don't

know, again takes a bit of courage, but you can do it.

Following up requires that we get some information from

people. You can't follow up with anyone

if you have no point of contact. And so, you know, I've said

three things. It's like invite, connect and

follow up. These things are going to help

us build a church, you know, into the future that that is

growing. We need for this to be our our

culture here. And so if we've, if we've

invited, if we've seen people invited, if we've connected

well, if we've blessed people, prayed for people, fed people,

connected with people, you know, like introduced people, all of

these things. Now we need, we need people's

information. We need for, to be able to

connect with people into, into the, you know, into the weekend

so that they can come. And a good way to do this is to

throw out another invite. It's like the process starts

again, right? It's quite often I'll invite

people to our community group, you know, so if we've got church

on Sunday, on Friday night, we, we have a community group where

we gather together and we eat and have fellowship and unpack

his word and pray and all the things that we should be doing.

So I'll invite people, I say, would you like to come and join

us again on Friday night? And if someone says sure, I've

enjoyed this, you know, and I would like to come.

OK, great. Could I have your phone number?

Could I have a social media can how can I connect with you to

give you this information so that you can come and be a part

of this? How like would you do you enjoy

praying? Is prayer something that you're

passionate about? We we gather here and we pray on

Wednesday nights. Would you like to come?

Yes, I would. OK, great.

Can I get your phone number? Can I, how can I, you know,

reach out to you? Or you could you could tell them

when the meeting is. But you know, we want to build a

culture of, of relational connection, right?

And that means that like if you've connected with someone

throughout a meeting or something like that, see if they

want to grab a coffee, invite them to dinner at your house,

throw out an invite, Let God take care of it.

But just be bold, right? It's just one way that we can

get people's information. Can I just say as well, we need

to be wise here. I know that this is sort of

going longer than I intended, but I need to say this.

We need to be wise. OK, So when it comes to like

young people or people of the opposite sex and stuff, please

be wise. Like I wouldn't go to, you know,

a single lady and say, Hey, can I get your phone number?

Like it's do you see what I'm saying?

Like there has we have to be a little wise in this.

OK, If I took my wife along, it might be OK, But just let's just

be a little careful. It might be easier just to ask

someone else along or ask someone else to connect or

something like that. Let's just be wise.

I I know that you guys know what we're saying, right?

Do you have anything to add to that, Justin?

I haven't done a good job of like actually relaying that.

Would you say anything more into that?

That's all good. OK, cool.

All right. So just be wise.

All right, so the so the follow up I would say needs to happen

sooner than later. Like I wouldn't let like 3 weeks

go by and then send them a message and say, Hey, would you

like to, you know, whatever, just be, be quick.

If we've got a community group this Friday, I'm trying to

invite people along that week and not in three weeks time, you

see, because like it's just a way of just staying connected

with people. I think it's just, it's just

good. It helps people to know that we

care as well. Like if if you ask for someone's

information and then they don't hear from you from three weeks,

Like if I said to Hillary when we met again, can I have your

number? And she didn't hear from me for

three weeks, she'd just be like, oh, OK, he wasn't really that

interested, right? Is it just, it says something,

it says that you care when you follow up quickly.

And the other thing that I would say just on that is that we got

to, we got to, we got to follow through with our word.

You know, quite often, like I hear of, of people saying, Hey,

you know, I'll give you a call sometime.

I'll run into this, you know, with my friends and stuff like

that outside of the church, you guys would never do this.

But like you run into friends, say, hey, we should catch up

sometime. Cool, I'll give you a call.

Never hear from them. We want to be authentic.

We want to be. It's like, let your yes be yes

and your no be no. If you say that you're going to

want to connect with someone, you, you have bound yourself

with an oath because we follow through on our word.

So just do what you, I just say all that just to say, just do

what you say you will do because we are representing the King.

The King doesn't do that. The Lord never says, Hey, I'll

do this and doesn't do it. So that's just that's just my

point there. We just got to do what we say

that we will do. All right, So one last scripture

here. I'm just going to get right to

the point. Jesus heals this man beside the

beside the pool and he tells him to pick up his bed and he goes

and this this man doesn't know who Jesus is.

And so, you know, when these questioned by the Pharisees and

stuff, he goes, I don't even know who he was, but he just

told me to like pick up my bed and I'm healed.

And he's wonderful. And you know, this sort of thing

it actually says here, yeah. So John 5 verse 14 actually says

John 5:14

that after all that happened, Jesus found him in the temple.

So Jesus actually sees him and finds him and goes and talks to

him again and gives him further direction for his life.

But my point is that Jesus follows up here.

Jesus like doesn't just leave him alone.

He actually finds him in the temple.

And can I say that like, you know, possibly if Jesus was

around today, he might follow up with, you know, a phone call or

a text or go looking for them on social media, right?

He might go, you know, this man that I healed, I wonder how he's

doing. Do you see what I'm saying?

Like Jesus followed up all that to say that there was an example

that Jesus said that he didn't just send people away and then

that that was it. He did want to follow up with

people. He did want to build

relationally. OK.

So, so those three things, this is kind of a crash landing, but

it's OK because we're sort of running out of time.

What are the three things? Number one was invite.

Number two, serve and connect #3 follow up.

If we do these things, well, if we do these things as as a

church, as a people and out of a good heart, again, like you

could do all these things, you know, with, with wrong motive.

But because we want to do these things because again, we are, we

have a passion in here that wants to see people come to know

him. So we're going to do these

things. We're going to see these things

put in place in this local church and the Lord's going to

add to us. We've seen this.

Can I say we've seen this happen?

This does happen. And, and, and it is a way that

we can do this, but it's going to take all of us.

We can't rely on the few to do this.

All of us can play our part in this.

And so I hope that's OK. I know it's super, super

practical today, but this is the season that God has in, has us

in as a church. We're building foundationally.

We're still putting the foundations in.

The building hasn't gone up yet, guys.

We're putting the, these, the which we're we're putting the

cultures in place that need to be in place, that as people

come, that they can be well taken care of and that we can be

successful in being the lampstand that the Lord has

called us to be. Amen.

I hope that's OK. Could we just stand together?

We're just going to pray. Yeah.

Lord, we, we thank you for your word.

We thank you, Lord, that your word washes us clean, makes us

whole, you know, reveals who you are and transforms us to be like

you. So through faith, Lord, we take

a hold of the things that that you've shared in and through

your scripture today. We want to be a church that has

a healthy Kingdom culture that when people come into this

building into this mix, into this family, Lord, that they

would see and taste that the Lord is good, that they would

experience something of the Kingdom of heaven here.

Lord, I pray that I was just reminded this morning as we were

singing, Lord, that your word says that your that your burden

is light and your yoke is easy. And so I pray over all of us in

this place, over any heaviness, Lord, over any struggles, over

any pain whatsoever, over any sickness, over any frustration,

whatever. It is anxiety.

Lord, I speak to those things now, even as the water just

hammered that mountain. I speak through faith with your

word, with the water of the word.

And I say, be healed in the name of Jesus, be set free, be

delivered, made whole, for the Lord is King.

He all authority has been given unto you, Lord Jesus, Palm

Sunday. Lord, you rode in on a donkey.

Lord, you're not sitting on a donkey anymore.

Lord, you are the lion of the tribe of Judah.

You are seated on the throne in heaven.

You are victorious and we look to you this morning.

We we exalt you, we praise you, we look to your coming and we

will work hard here Lord, to see your Kingdom come and your will

be done in Jesus mighty name, Amen.

Thank you for joining us for today's message.

For more information about The Way Church, please visit

[email protected] dot AU.

Have a blessed day.