Sermon

26 Oct 2025: Global Equip 25 Recap... Love Obedience + Sacrifice

The Way Church Podcast

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

  2. Australia. We're going to hear from Hilary,

  3. I believe first this morning just from her time in the Global

  4. Equip. Global Equip recordings are

  5. actually available online as well.

  6. So I think there's a QR code that will flash up on the screen

  7. later. We'd encourage you to go listen

  8. to those as well because you can catch Revelation, the beauty of

  9. recordings, the beauty of technology.

  10. Hey, though you don't actually, we would love everyone to go

  11. there because you catch something from the atmosphere,

  12. but you can still catch Revelation from what has been

  13. shared through recordings. So head online, the video to the

  14. YouTube and stuff. So I'd encourage you to go

  15. listen to those. We're going to hear from Hillary

  16. this morning around some of the stuff that she got for us and

  17. she got personally. So somebody want to pray for

  18. Hillary as she comes and shares? OK, Craig's going to come.

  19. Father, thank you for the gift that you've laid on Hillary,

  20. Lord, and thank you for who you made our Lord.

  21. Father, you hold a special place in your heart for her as you

  22. hold a special place for us all. Father, this morning just pour

  23. out that blessing. Pour out that love through her

  24. and honor Lord and Lord, open our ears and our hearts to hear

  25. what you've got to say through her.

  26. Your humble servant. Lord, we thank you for in Jesus

  27. name, Amen. Oh, you want that?

  28. Yep. We'll need that.

  29. Thank you. Awesome.

  30. Thank you. Cool.

  31. Well, thank you for having me. Speaking in front of people

  32. doesn't like scare me, but I don't do it very often.

  33. So lucky you all love me. Hey, and as I mentioned this

  34. morning, there was a point this morning where I'm like, I don't

  35. even think I should be sharing because my heart is just all

  36. sorts of wrong right now. But I've applied some of the

  37. things that I'm talking about this morning and here we are.

  38. So yes, so we went to the Global Equip before we left, we

  39. expressed that we had a bit of trepidation against about doing

  40. it with the family. And what I've been saying to

  41. people since we got home was that it was equal parts

  42. beautiful and crazy hard all at the same time.

  43. Many of you would know our flight from Perth to

  44. Johannesburg got cancelled. And so we had 24 hours in Perth,

  45. which was fun. And we got to catch up with a

  46. girl that we used to know closely at Kingdom Life.

  47. She's living in Perth now and that was a real treat.

  48. But young kids, hotel rooms, late nights, hotel food, it was

  49. just, it was a bit of a rocky start to the trip.

  50. And then we landed in Johannesburg and Dave Progress

  51. proceeded to get sick. And so it was just it was a

  52. great first 48 hours was like I went to one of the other moms at

  53. the Equip and I think the first thing that came out of me was

  54. like, what have we done? But thankfully it got better

  55. from there and I've come home and I would do it all again.

  56. All things taken into account and part of the beautiful part

  57. of it was yes, travelling as a family, like our cellular

  58. family, but then travelling as a family.

  59. I got to watch my kids press into Chantelle and Daniel and

  60. Justin and and build those friendships.

  61. You know, Chantelle held Aiden for ages.

  62. She fell asleep on her. She, you know, it was just one

  63. of those things where the the family of the white church that

  64. was there, I feel grouped closer together in the process.

  65. And it was really, really lovely.

  66. And it's a part of the reason why us spending time together

  67. meaningfully. And it's substantially knits us

  68. together. Yeah.

  69. And then throughout the equip, throughout the sessions, there

  70. was just this constant through the prophetic words and through

  71. the worship and through the messages, just this constant

  72. encouragement just to keep on persevering, which I really felt

  73. for us as a church. I can remember at one point

  74. looking to Chantel and just being like everyone today has

  75. been speaking into our context. It was just constant, like, you

  76. know, keep on building, keep on persevering it, you know, it

  77. might not look the way you expected it to at this point,

  78. but keep going, don't lose, lose heart.

  79. Just keep on keeping on, which was awesome.

  80. I've just really felt so encouraged in that.

  81. And then of course, it is personal things as well, one of

  82. the things that grabbed my attention and has left me

  83. pondering for myself personally and for us as a local church and

  84. beyond. One of the speakers spoke about

  85. being captivated by Jesus. I realized because I listened to

  86. it again, I've been waiting for the podcast to come up so I

  87. could catch up. And I realized that I actually

  88. missed the first half of his message because I was out with

  89. the baby realities. And the whole message is really,

  90. really good. I would encourage you.

  91. It was session 12 if you want to go and listen to the whole

  92. thing. It was really, really good.

  93. And then I sort of got a bit derailed because I was just

  94. like, oh, I'm emphasizing something was emphasized to me

  95. that wasn't his emphasis. And then I sort of felt God to

  96. say, like, I knew I knew you weren't going to catch the first

  97. half of it. I knew what you were going to

  98. catch and you caught what you needed to catch.

  99. So here we are. And So what he said was that he

  100. was talking about being captivated by Jesus.

  101. And he said he referred to the scripture where John says, if

  102. you love me, you will keep my commandments.

  103. And then he said, we've reduced love to obedience.

  104. Do we have a lot of good obeyers in the room?

  105. And I was like, oh, and you know, obedience is good.

  106. And this is what he said. But we cannot forget that God

  107. commands obedience, but he also commands our affection and our

  108. love. And so I've spent a lot of time

  109. pondering this for myself, and I can see that I do have a

  110. tendency towards doing what I'm told in the word versus loving

  111. and walking with my Heavenly Father who wants to know me and

  112. for me to know him. So I, I think that I flip this

  113. scripture in my brain and I say, if I obey Jesus, then I love him

  114. or I prove my love for for Jesus by obeying him.

  115. But The thing is this is that Jesus, God born of a woman to

  116. live a life on earth, a sinless life, to take the the sins of

  117. the world to the cross and and in doing so pay the price for us

  118. that we could come back into relationship with God, that we

  119. may have eternal life. But The thing is with eternal

  120. life is that it's not about, it's not all about heaven.

  121. It is about heaven. But God defines eternal life.

  122. In John 17 he says eternal life is this, that we would know the

  123. Father and Jesus Christ his Son. And so when we forget that part

  124. of the gospel that what he paid for was that we could come back

  125. into the presence of God and enjoy him and know him and walk

  126. relationally with him, we're just missing the beauty of the

  127. gospel. And we can't share the gospel

  128. correctly if we don't have that revelation of relationship with

  129. God. So we we can get to enjoy a part

  130. of eternity right here in our day-to-day lives.

  131. Paul says in Philippians 3, he says, indeed, I count everything

  132. as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing

  133. Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake.

  134. I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish

  135. in order that I may gain Christ. So our first fundamental goal in

  136. our faith is to know and love our Saviour.

  137. Jesus says in Matthew 22 that the greatest commandment is to

  138. love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and

  139. then love others as yourself. So Jesus does command our

  140. obedience, and he also commands our love and affection.

  141. And being mindful of the fact that I have a tendency towards

  142. obedience, I've been reading the word a bit differently and

  143. trying to swing myself the other way.

  144. But what I've noticed is, is that love and obedience are

  145. closely intertwined all the time.

  146. So practically then, how do we grow in our love for God?

  147. Well, first of all, I think that we need to have faith.

  148. We have faith even just to proclaim that Jesus is our Lord

  149. and Savior. But we have to have faith that

  150. knowing God, loving God, him loving us, that it's even a

  151. possibility and that it's available to us.

  152. In Hebrews 11, it says without faith it is impossible to please

  153. God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists

  154. and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

  155. So we've got to have faith that this is even a possibility for

  156. us. So the second thing that I think

  157. we need to do is to delight in his word and his ways.

  158. See, we come to know someone truly when we see what they do.

  159. And that presents a bit of a problem when we Jesus is not

  160. physically in front of us, but we have his word and we can see

  161. his life in the in the New Testament, but we can also see

  162. the nature of God throughout the Old Testament.

  163. And so we can see in there what he loves, what he hates, what

  164. hurts his heart, the things that makes him happy, the things that

  165. makes him angry. And so through all of that, when

  166. we switch our lens and say, God, I want to see you Jesus, I want

  167. to see who you are throughout the whole scripture, then we

  168. understand that we have an opportunity to come to know him

  169. better. And, and, and the question is as

  170. well, because sometimes when I'm reading the word, I go, I don't

  171. understand that at all or God that doesn't match in my head

  172. with who you are. Like I can't compute that.

  173. And those things aren't contradictions.

  174. They're opportunities for us to ask God questions and to grow in

  175. our understanding and love for him.

  176. I love Psalm 119. I feel like it's just, it's, I

  177. think the biggest Psalm in the in the Bible.

  178. And it, it goes on and on and on and, and the heartbeat of it is,

  179. is really beautiful. And so I just want to pull out.

  180. I mean, honestly, it's impossible.

  181. You could read the whole thing and it would just drive this

  182. point home. But I've just picked out a few

  183. verses from the beginning. In verse 10 of Psalm 119, it

  184. says with my whole heart I seek you.

  185. In verse 11 it says, I have stored up your word in my heart

  186. that I might not sin against you.

  187. Blessed are you. Lord, teach me your statutes.

  188. It's such a relational Psalm and it's amazing because it's Old

  189. Testament in the ways of your testimonies.

  190. I delight as much as in all riches to we delight in, in

  191. God's ways his testimonies more so than the riches of this

  192. world. It's challenging.

  193. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.

  194. How much time do we spend meditating on who God is and His

  195. ways and how it affects us because we're created in His

  196. image, My soul. This is verse 20.

  197. My soul is consumed with longing for Your rules at all times.

  198. Verse 24. Your testimonies are my delight.

  199. They are my counsellors. And so I would encourage you to

  200. go on. I mean that Psalm.

  201. You can pull out a section of it and pray it over yourself.

  202. Because if this isn't in our heart, Lord, let it be My heart.

  203. Lord, transform me into Your image.

  204. This is how I want to long for You.

  205. It's so beautiful. Psalm 37 says delight yourself

  206. in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

  207. We like that one. I think that it's a whole.

  208. It has a whole different meaning.

  209. I believe that when we delight ourselves in Lord, then He

  210. shifts out the desires of our hearts so that His desires are

  211. our desires and then He can pull them out.

  212. He can pull them out. Goes on to say commit your way

  213. to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act.

  214. I caught this when I was preparing he will bring forth

  215. your righteousness as the light and the just and your justice as

  216. the noonday. I just I realized that when you

  217. commit your way to the Lord, this is committing to obey him

  218. and this is what I'm when we trust in him, he will bring

  219. forth our righteousness that I mean that's just incredible.

  220. That's to me, that's saying when you trust me and you point your

  221. path towards my ways, I will transform you.

  222. I will make you like me incredible.

  223. And so that leads me to my next point is that we do need to obey

  224. love and obedience. They go hand in hand.

  225. And so you know, I could have walked away from the trick from

  226. the equipped going, Oh, stop being so obsessed with obeying

  227. God and just love him. But but they're not you can't

  228. have one without the other. They go hand in hand.

  229. So it's a part of our process of growing in our love for God that

  230. we obey him. In Colossians one verse 9, it

  231. says for this reason, we also since the day we heard it, do

  232. not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with

  233. the knowledge, filled with the knowledge of his will in all

  234. wisdom and spiritual understanding that you may work

  235. walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in

  236. every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

  237. So every good work increasing in knowledge, it's just they go

  238. hand in hand. And so we cannot emphasize one

  239. over the other. It's got to be both always.

  240. And so I'm a pretty practical person.

  241. I know lots of you in this room are very well versed in this,

  242. but we've got a lot of young believers along the way with us

  243. and we're trusting for more. And so we've got to understand

  244. that when we're talking about obedience to God, some people

  245. might just be like, what are you actually talking about?

  246. And so I just wanted to bring some really practical examples

  247. that we've that we've applied, I guess throughout our lives.

  248. We will have heard Dave speak about some of these in the past,

  249. so I'm not going to repeat some of them.

  250. But when we first came back to God, there were major things in

  251. our lives that we had to shift. One of them was the choice to

  252. come to church. And that might seem pretty

  253. obvious. Most people go like, I'm

  254. pursuing God and church goes hand in hand with that.

  255. But I was working at the time at at a service station and my boss

  256. had just rosted me on the coffee shift for Sunday mornings.

  257. And so, you know, I'm like, I've gone to my boss.

  258. I'm like, I'm really sorry, but those shifts that I said that I

  259. can do, I can't do anymore. And, and I explained to him why

  260. and thankfully he was very gracious and he was like, that's

  261. important, that's fine. And I'll make adjustments.

  262. But the point is, is that when we're convicted in our hearts,

  263. sometimes we have to make sacrifices.

  264. And so, and for us and for me personally, that was one thing

  265. that I had to sacrifice and God honoured me and and I was well

  266. looked after, but that was just a reality.

  267. Sometimes, you know, there are things that are important to us,

  268. whether it be important to us because of God and we have to be

  269. willing to go, this is your way. And God, if I have to sacrifice

  270. something to be a part of this, then I'm going to trust you to

  271. honor me and and provide for me because I'm honoring you first.

  272. Another thing that's this is an ongoing work in progress, but

  273. was just the understanding of love and any one of you who

  274. knows me knows that first Corinthians 13 is like a life

  275. scripture for me, but it's constant throughout my

  276. relationship with my husband, with my kids, with the people

  277. around me that I love. The constant reminder.

  278. See the 1st Corinthians 13 isn't a commandment, but it is a

  279. definition of who God is. And so when we read, when we're

  280. reading, love is patient, love is kind, love bears no record or

  281. wrongs, love endures. These are things that we, when

  282. we're as we're reading the word, we align ourselves to them.

  283. And so when I'm dealing with my husband, sorry, babe, all my

  284. kids am, am I being patient? You know, am I being kind?

  285. Am I keeping record? Am I keeping score?

  286. It and, and again, it's not that's an easy relationship for,

  287. for you to apply it to, but it actually applies to all

  288. relationships. And so, and this is just I'm

  289. trying to bring examples of how we align ourselves with God's

  290. word throughout our daily lives. Another one for us was our

  291. finances. We've been following God since

  292. 2015 and probably about 18 months ago we finally got on

  293. board with His way of doing our money.

  294. And now I'm not talking about giving.

  295. Giving was something that we started way back from the

  296. beginning and we've consistently done that for as long as we've.

  297. That was one of the things that we changed in the beginning.

  298. But I'm talking about breaking up with the idea that credit

  299. cards are OK, breaking up with the idea that that debt is a

  300. part of our life. We still have a mortgage, but we

  301. have eliminated all other debt from our life.

  302. We don't. I don't do after pay.

  303. We don't do credit cards. We don't do personal loans.

  304. If we don't have the cash for something, we don't do it.

  305. And that is one of God's ways. In Deuteronomy, God lays out all

  306. the blessings and all the curses for his people.

  307. They will borrow, they will lend, but they will not borrow

  308. is a blessing and a curse is that they will borrow and not

  309. lend. And so when we understand that

  310. this is God's way and I want to do life God's way, then we align

  311. ourselves to things. And it's a process.

  312. It's a growing process. As we read the Word, we might

  313. change one thing today and then we come back to that same

  314. scripture and we change another thing.

  315. But God speaks to us and we submit our lives to him and we

  316. put him first and we trust him with all the details and and as

  317. I said before, when we commit our way to the Lord, trust him,

  318. he will bring forth our righteousness.

  319. Amazing. So as I close, I kind of walked

  320. away from what I was feeling to share.

  321. And I'm just like God. We've spoken about obedience so

  322. much over the last few years. Like, is it just me that's not

  323. getting this? Like, do I need to share this to

  324. the whole church? And the thing that stuck out to

  325. me was that this was emphasized message after message at the

  326. Global Equip. And so it makes me wonder, maybe

  327. God's bride needs to grow in her love and obedience.

  328. God's ways are radical in today's culture.

  329. Like fancy telling anyone that you don't do after pay.

  330. Fancy telling anyone that I won't borrow money to buy a car,

  331. or whatever the case may be. People will look at you like

  332. you've got 2 heads. Fancy telling people that I

  333. choose not to bear any record of wrong?

  334. God's ways are radical, and when we submit ourselves to the ways

  335. of the world around us, we lose our saltiness, we lose our

  336. light, we lose the thing that sets us apart from everything

  337. else around us. And so we need to come back to

  338. loving God, loving His ways, and being obedient to them.

  339. But it's got to be from a place of love.

  340. If you are coming to God's word like a rule book of things that

  341. you have to do, you're not living in joy and peace and

  342. freedom, you're bound. So we've got to love God 1st and

  343. obey him freely and cheerfully. And yeah.

  344. And so my final question, well statement I guess is in Matthew

  345. 6, Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart

  346. will be also. And so can I encourage us.

  347. Let us treasure Jesus and let us love him and follow him, and

  348. from that place change the world around us.

  349. Good job. I'll give you a kiss later.

  350. Oh, so good. Yeah.

  351. Like I feel like I've been talking about obedience for, you

  352. know, I talk about it all the time, but then you hear someone

  353. else talk about it and you're just like, oh, I just got to

  354. start reapplying some of these things, you know, like we need

  355. to hear other voices. We need to, you know, if we hear

  356. the same thing over and over from the same person, we get

  357. dull of hearing. And so, yeah, it's it's good to

  358. have other voices speaking. And I'm not going to take a

  359. whole lot of time here. You know, we're just going to go

  360. over the same ground. But you know, some of the things

  361. that we've, we've spoken about, we've heard in the last couple

  362. of weeks, our takeaways from, from, you know, me personally

  363. from being away. You know what Hillary shared

  364. this morning about, you know, coming back and, and just, you

  365. know, manning the the wall again and just continue to build and,

  366. and keep pushing in and don't be discouraged.

  367. And all of those things like I've come back, you know, just

  368. with a, with a new, new, another freshness, just a ready to go

  369. for another season. And so, you know, where we're

  370. building it, We're still building, we're still pushing

  371. in. We're still trusting that God is

  372. faithful. And you know, obedience and

  373. fruitfulness huge, just, you know, huge themes in all of the,

  374. the equip, all of the meetings and fruitfulness for us is

  375. something that we, we, we're dreaming of seeing.

  376. We are pushing in. We are trusting God for we are

  377. seeing, you know, we're seeing a little bit of it.

  378. And we're like, Lord, come on, show us.

  379. Show us your mighty hand. Lord, show us your mighty hand

  380. to save. And so expecting into this

  381. coming season that we're going to see more and more

  382. fruitfulness. We're going to see more and more

  383. people coming to know him. Like I've said this before, we

  384. want this church, we want to see this church grow through

  385. salvations. We don't want to see this church

  386. just grow through Christians coming from other places.

  387. We want to see the gospel do its thing.

  388. We want to see the Lord do he sing.

  389. And that's what we're hungry for, that people would come to

  390. know him and how good he is and know his ways and step into his

  391. ways and sacrifice and, and give it all up for him and for his

  392. Kingdom. Amen.

  393. This is a king and the Kingdom that we're a part of, that we

  394. celebrate, that we lift higher. You know, So one of the things

  395. that Ty had said during one of these meetings, and he said it

  396. before, I've taken note of it before.

  397. He said something about, I'm not going to quote him word for

  398. word, but it's just like God works in you to work through you

  399. and it as he works through you. So it's all happening at the

  400. same time. It's not this one first and then

  401. that first. God doesn't just, you know, you

  402. have to work and work and work and work so that you can be

  403. used. It's like someone that is saved

  404. is equipped to be able to share what they just received and, and

  405. what saved them with the next person in the moment.

  406. You know, you don't have to go through the the course to become

  407. this and that to be able to be effective in sharing the gospel.

  408. You know the gospel, you receive the gospel, the gospel saved

  409. you. You've got something to share.

  410. Now it's the gospel that saves it not it's not, you know your

  411. testimony, it's not your the way that you're walking in and out.

  412. It's none of those things. It's the gospel, the gospel that

  413. saves. So we're all equipped to share

  414. the gospel and God's working in US so that he can work through

  415. US. And the in US is, is

  416. sanctification. You know, this is this is like

  417. the being obedient. This is like The Walking this

  418. thing out. This is like taking on God's

  419. ways and allowing your own ways to wash away.

  420. So, you know, we might have to continue to talk about

  421. sanctification because we do have new believers in our midst

  422. now. And we're going to have to teach

  423. them how to walk this thing out. But all of us need a good

  424. reminder of that we're being sanctified and that we haven't

  425. made it. You know, I certainly need to

  426. hear that, but Jesus, like, why, you know, why did Jesus come?

  427. Can I ask the question of you guys, why did Jesus come anyone?

  428. Because this is what we would say, right?

  429. For salvation, for restoration, that we would be saved.

  430. But that's not necessarily why why Jesus came.

  431. It's one of the reasons Jesus came.

  432. It's certainly what the gospel is about.

  433. Jesus came to reveal the Father. He came to reveal God so that we

  434. would know who God was, so that we could be reconnected with

  435. God. That's what salvation is.

  436. It's the reconnecting with God. Jesus came to reveal the Father.

  437. Jesus restores us and puts His Spirit in US.

  438. Why? Why does God save us, put his

  439. spirit of in US and leave us here on the planet to reveal the

  440. Father, to reveal Jesus? That's the reason, you know that

  441. that's huge. It's why Jesus came.

  442. It's why we're here. It's why we're being conformed

  443. into his image, All of those things.

  444. Jesus doesn't just conform his US into his image so that we

  445. become good again, so that others can see him.

  446. God is Jesus is all about revealing God.

  447. And so This is why we gather. This is why we're here today,

  448. that Jesus would be revealed in US and through us.

  449. This is why we come together in our homes.

  450. This is why we share the gospel that Jesus would be revealed.

  451. All of those things. I love that.

  452. It's a pretty simple truth, isn't it?

  453. Like Lord, I just want to reveal you.

  454. I, I don't want to be obedient for the sake of just following

  455. the law. I want people to see you.

  456. I want people to know who you are, you know, and that's why we

  457. can get excited about being obedient and following his ways,

  458. because when we follow his ways, people see his ways.

  459. It's pretty cool. I love how, you know, we come

  460. together, the global equip, we come together.

  461. You know, our time of worship and praise is a special thing

  462. when there's thousands of people in a room.

  463. But can I say that it's not just because of the number of the

  464. amount of people in the room, There is a commitment to

  465. praising him in that room. And I was pondering that over

  466. over the last week or even at our time there.

  467. Why is it that when we come together for the global equip,

  468. when we come together in a larger context, you know, our

  469. national elders time when we come together for our national

  470. equips and stuff like that. Why is it that it seems like

  471. when we stand together and we worship, it just seems like the

  472. presence of God is there in a really powerful way.

  473. Why is that? And I was thinking about that

  474. and I think, you know, I you know, I think part of the reason

  475. that that is manifest in those places is because we have

  476. sacrificed something to be there.

  477. And I was reminded of two Samuel 24, verse 24.

  478. It says the king said to Ara Nana, I did not pronounce that

  479. right. Anyway, this is David.

  480. King David says this. He says nor will Ioffer burnt

  481. offerings to the Lord my God, that which did not cost me

  482. anything. So we're talking about this,

  483. this place where the Temple Mount's going to be.

  484. And King David says I will buy it.

  485. I will buy the oxen. I will buy the things for the

  486. temple because this guy was going to just going to give it.

  487. He was just like, oh, you, you God take it.

  488. It's for the Lord, you take it. And this is what David says.

  489. He says I will not offer anything to the Lord that

  490. doesn't cost me anything. And there is a really cool

  491. glimpse into the heart of not only David, but the heart of God

  492. because we know that this is 1 after my own heart in David.

  493. So we wouldn't want to offer God anything that doesn't cost us

  494. anything. And so when we get on a plane

  495. and when we travel over to the other side of the earth and when

  496. we give up finances, when we give up time, when we take time

  497. off of our jobs, when we load all the kids up and take them in

  498. a plane, all of these things, you know, it costs us something.

  499. It costs us something. And, and it's a very special

  500. thing because when it costs us something, it means something to

  501. us. We are there to offer something

  502. to him because he's worthy. We are willing to take the take

  503. the hit. We're willing to pay the price.

  504. You know, the value, there's value when we worship him.

  505. You know, you can measure the how much you worship God in your

  506. life by how much it costs you. That's a that's a real truth

  507. glass. If you coming to be church to at

  508. church if you coming to be a part of the family of God, if

  509. you you know, sacrificing to to follow the Lord cost you

  510. something that is demonstrating his value to you.

  511. But you know who sees that? Everyone, right?

  512. The people that you're witnessing to at each other in

  513. this room. When we look at the sacrifices

  514. you and I are willing to make, we see that God is worthy.

  515. It's a powerful thing. And so This is why people are

  516. looking at our lives. You know, it says that, you

  517. know, like people read our lives, especially the unsaved

  518. people. They're looking at you and I and

  519. they're trying to work out whether what we say is true or

  520. not. And it's not just through the

  521. words that we speak. It's not through quoting the

  522. scripture that we know is true. Mate, let me just read you this

  523. scripture because it's the Word of God.

  524. It's true. They don't know that.

  525. So how are they measuring whether what you say is true or

  526. not? Through your willingness to

  527. sacrifice, through your willingness to walk this thing

  528. out, right? Isn't that cool?

  529. My gosh. So I don't have too much more to

  530. say other than that, but we got things coming up guys.

  531. You know, there's there's there's a together night that is

  532. going to be a time for us to come together at Kingdom Life.

  533. We're going to come together as different churches, NCMI

  534. partnering churches in our city. We're going to come together.

  535. We're going to come together and worship.

  536. It's going to take some sacrifice for us to get down

  537. there and do that. I think it's going to be a

  538. Sunday night, Sunday PM. You know, we're going to be

  539. potentially, we're going to be tied from from our day and all

  540. of those things we might have to sacrifice together.

  541. Why is it important to be there? Because we want to be a part of

  542. what God's doing in our city. We're this church is a global

  543. church. We're partnered with churches

  544. all around the world, but we're partnered with churches in our

  545. city. And it's important for us to

  546. come together as the church in our city and hear what God's

  547. saying and worship the Lord together, be a part of the

  548. bigness and national elders. Time is in Adelaide.

  549. Wow, that's a relief, isn't it? We don't need to get in a plane

  550. and go somewhere like you don't, But there's an opportunity to

  551. come and serve at this thing, you know, because like this,

  552. that's quite a big event. There's passes and and stuff

  553. from all over our country. They're going to come together.

  554. There's got to be opportunities for us to sacrifice and to and

  555. to serve and and to play our part.

  556. You know, these, I'm just, I'm highlighting some of the ways

  557. that we can get, get, you know, involved in the bigger church.

  558. There is opportunities for us. Obviously there's later next

  559. year, there's going to be our, our national equip, our

  560. Australia equip, you know, in Sydney, a bunch of us.

  561. I'm sure we're going to get on a plane.

  562. We're going to go over there. I would encourage everyone.

  563. Tony's going, Tony's nodding. Tony's going.

  564. Good on you, Tony. Tony's coming along, you know,

  565. Christian, his son's going. He's so you're excited about

  566. that, right? It's going to be a good time.

  567. There is an opportunity for us to to come and, and, and go

  568. somewhere together. Even like Hillary was sharing

  569. today. It's like when we go away

  570. together and when we, like, you know, live our lives in another

  571. place and have to look after each other and take care of each

  572. other, we grow. We grow in our friendship, we

  573. grow in our relationship. It's very special.

  574. Such an opportunity to be a part of that.

  575. OK, the, the final thing that I'll just say is that, you know,

  576. I was thinking about our, you know, our community groups and,

  577. you know, quite often I think about, you know, we, we have

  578. this understanding that we go for ourselves.

  579. Like I go to the community group because you know, like we're

  580. going to, it's just like what I can get, you know, like I can

  581. grow in that place. You know, we're going to unpack

  582. the word together. We're going to pray together.

  583. I can get a lot out of that. And it's true, I get a lot out

  584. of our time together at the community, right?

  585. But it's bigger than that. And it's getting bigger than

  586. that because we're seeing people that are unsaved coming and

  587. sitting in these rooms. And that means that we're

  588. required to be there, not for your sake, for their sake.

  589. You know, I've really enjoyed like seeing us interact with

  590. these people and sharing and, and speaking about what God's

  591. doing in our lives and stuff like that.

  592. And that's not coming through the leadership, that's coming

  593. through us as a people. And so put AI just I'm trying to

  594. stir us up to know that you've got something inside of you that

  595. the Lord has put something in each and every one of us that he

  596. wants to come out. He wants to reveal himself in US

  597. and through us. So we have to come together.

  598. We have to be together so that what God's put in US can flow in

  599. US and through us because you know, when we're when we are,

  600. when we're the words just left my brain.

  601. When you use what God's given you, God gives you more.

  602. When you're faithful with a little, God gives you more.

  603. This is the principle when you hold back what the Lord's put in

  604. you because you know, for various reasons, some are real,

  605. you might be tired and all of the busy week, whatever, when

  606. you hold back from going and pouring out, you're missing an

  607. opportunity for God to put more in.

  608. We are being conformed into the image of our God and that just

  609. doesn't happen. You know, that just doesn't

  610. happen through just time, you know, like, you know, if, if

  611. there's just a lot of time, then I'll become like him.

  612. That just doesn't happen like that.

  613. You know what it reminds me of when when they say, you know,

  614. evolution and stuff like that. Yeah, if we can just say that it

  615. took a really long time, then it can make sense.

  616. Things just don't happen, right. It's going to take us being

  617. actually diligent and pushing in and doing the things that God's

  618. calling us to do and, and using the muscle, you know, using the

  619. muscle that God's put in US. And then and then he is formed

  620. in US and through US. Amen.

  621. Amen. So I'm just going to hand over

  622. to Justin and hopefully you can land this thing and thank you,

  623. bro. Yeah, but we give him give both

  624. of them a round of applause. Hey, I was thinking just like

  625. how how do we respond to what these guys have shared and Dave

  626. sharing on sacrifice. So I was just thinking about

  627. what you were sharing, Hillary, around love and obedience.

  628. And you know that both take sacrifice.

  629. Yeah. It it cost me something to buy

  630. flowers for my wife. It cost me my preferences when I

  631. want to spend time with her, when I want to show an interest

  632. in her, it cost me something and also cost me something to show

  633. obedience to God. And so both love and obedience

  634. cost us something. And the reward it's is amazing.

  635. But in the moment, it cost us something.

  636. I'll just we're just going to respond just to one of those two

  637. camps. I just feel even in me just God

  638. has highlighted to us as individuals, whether it's your

  639. love for him or whether it's your obedience to him, his and

  640. God just threw what Hillary was sharing is just kind of going

  641. hey, like love, love me, love me, love me.

  642. Or maybe you're in the camp where God is just pinpointed an

  643. area, or even as some of the practical areas that Hillary was

  644. mentioning or some of the areas that Dave was mentioning where

  645. God's kind of going, hey, this, this needs some obedience.

  646. This needs to just line up again with my word.

  647. So if we take a moment just to bow our heads and just to honor

  648. the work of the Holy Spirit in this place, Father, we come

  649. before you, we offer our hearts on the back of these words.

  650. As Dave said, you're working in us as you work through us.

  651. And so we just open our hearts to you, Lord, if there's an area

  652. where our affection has waned, where we haven't put you first,

  653. where we're not sacrificing to show you a love for you, we pray

  654. would you show us that area? And we repent and we said, Lord,

  655. we will make you our first love again.

  656. We make you our first love again.

  657. And Lord, that area that you've highlighted in our life that

  658. doesn't quite line up with your words, with your commands, we

  659. surrender it to you. And we've just asked, would your

  660. Holy Spirit come and center us again?

  661. Would your Holy Spirit come and realign and cause us to obey?

  662. And so we lay our hearts before you, we lay our thoughts before

  663. you and we pray, Holy Spirit, would you do a work in us as we

  664. go out from this place in Jesus name, God's people said Amen.

  665. Awesome guys. Thank you again Dave and Hillary

  666. for sharing. That was great.

  667. Thank you for joining us for today's message.

  668. For more information about The Way Church, please visit

  669. Have a blessed day.