5th Oct 2025: Why We Attend Church Meetings?

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

Australia. Keep.

Praying for the guys that are still in South Africa.

So Dave and Hilary are going to be flying back.

I think it's Wednesday or Thursday.

They're going to enjoy some time as a family at a game park.

So for those of you who haven't been to South Africa, that

literally means just, it's not like games, it's like counting

the children to make sure they leave because it's like where

there's wild animals, so wild lions, wild elephants and stuff

like that. So they're going to a place

called Pillensburg, which is a pretty cool place with swimming

pools and there's stuff. So it's a bit of a resorty, but

it's also wild animals. So be praying for them for a

refreshing time. Dan and Chantel are to church

this morning. Yeah, 7 hours behind this

morning and then they'll be flying back tonight.

So pray for their travels as well.

Thank you for looking after my wife and my kids.

I really did appreciate it. Guys, it's so hard, but I want

to encourage you guys as well. So you know how we gathered just

before we all flew out and we just asked what, what are we

feeling God would do? And what I was encouraged is we

had words like it's time and that is being handed over and

stuff like that. And you know, we get to the

Global Equip and the second session, somebody stands up in

the title of the message, it's time.

And we're just like, sheesh. And then a couple of sessions

later, somebody's like, man, I feel like battens are being

handed over. A little church in Adelaide,

Australia. Hearing the voice of God.

That's not just happening here, but happening globally.

I tell you, isn't that amazing? Just like God would Global, God

would speak to a little church in Adelaide and said, this is

what I want to do, not just here, but what I'm doing around

the world. So I want to encourage you guys

like let's, let's lean into the voice of God because he's

speaking to us not just for our context, but actually globally.

And that's awesome. So the prayers we pray, we pray

for us, we pray for them, which is super cool.

And something else that we shared and was a guy got up

called Leo. Many of us may know of Leo.

He leads a church in Sydney in GGC Glorious Gospel Church.

And he actually spoke about multiplication, which is a

really cool word, but he reflected on something that I'm

going to share this morning. And that was that we had, as I

said, over 5000 people. There was 34 nations

represented. And NCML and New Covenant

Ministries International has been going for 45 years, which I

didn't realize, but it started with a group of just a few men

getting together and saying, what does the Bible say of how

we should do church? And 45 years later, that group

of men multiplied and is now working into hundreds of nations

around the world. Countless people are being

saved. Churches have been planted,

nations have been taken for the gospel.

And I say all that to say that we're Dudley's going to be

sharing this morning. And he was one of those original

men in that small group that just went, what does the Bible

say? And then multiplied and

multiplied and multiplied and multiplied.

So I'd encourage this this morning, just open your hearts

because this is just not just somebody, our church, but

somebody who has really committed to just, hey, what

does the Bible teach? And we've seen incredible fruit

over 45 years around the globe. And so it's an incredible

privilege to have him share this morning.

So would you come up, Dudley? Father, we thank you for this

gift that you've placed in our church.

We thank you for the words that you've spoken to him.

You've shared upon him the gifting that you've put upon his

life, not just impact us here, but the lasting fruit around the

globe. We just pray just the word that

you've given him for us this morning would bear fruit in our

hearts just as it has borne fruit over the last 45 years

around the world. We thank you in Jesus name,

Amen. Amen.

Thank you. It's always a privilege to share

the word of God anywhere in the world with any group of people.

But for us, this is our home church.

And it's. Yeah, it's like a double

privilege as far as I'm concerned.

Just excuse my throat. I'm not sick anymore.

I was last weekend and I'm still just getting over the clearing

of my chest. So I'm going to have to use this

mic and sometimes sound like I'm shouting when my voice gets a

little lower. I don't have the strongest voice

anymore. Age catches up with you and

changes lots of things, but I felt like I just need to say to

you before we start this morning that this church is a very

precious church to God, Very special people.

I don't know that we know that as deeply as God feels His love

for us, most of us have walked a long, long road with God.

Some of us it's a little shorter, but God has been

faithful to every one of us at every level, all the time, no

matter what. We've blown it.

We've been in victory, we've been in defeat, we've been

strong, we've been weak, But God has never changed, and His love

never changes. It's a wonderful thing to know

that nothing in all the world, not even sin, if it's just

simply confessed, nothing can separate us from His love, the

love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Nothing. Sometimes we come and we feel

like we've blown it even sometimes on the way to the

meeting and therefore we feel we're unworthy.

Let me just clear something up for all of us.

Again, you all know this, but let me clear it up for you.

You'll never be worthy and nor will I.

There was only one and that was Jesus and because of His

worthiness, God would just wants to keep pouring love and life

into us all. So I'm going to pick up this

morning from something Justin was sharing the scripture he

used anyway just before he left and not I think it was a Sunday

before he left and it's found in Ephesians chapter 3 and verse

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

10. If you'll just turn with me now,

I did give my scriptures to Hillary and somehow or the

other, those scriptures have not got to Peter today for him to be

able to be ahead of us. So I'm going to have to ask you

to turn in some of the scriptures If when I'll give

them if he hasn't got them up quick enough.

We're going to have to take a little more time looking up in

our Bibles. If you can get them up quick

enough. He's a better man than I than I

am. All right, Ephesians chapter 3

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

before we read it. And from verse 10, we're going

to read to the 13th verse when we're trying to train people

that can be our kids, people in the workplace, whatever it is.

So often we share with them the what they should do, the how

they should do it, when they should do it, where they should

do it, etcetera. But we very often forget to tell

them the why. Why should you do what I'm going

to tell you, where I tell you, etcetera, etcetera.

Even telling, bringing up our kids and so many of us as

preachers, that's our problem as well.

We tell people what to do. We tell them what the Bible

tells them they need to do what God says.

But very often we we neglect to tell them why.

And that's what we want to look at this morning.

And so if you'll turn with me, if you have your Bibles open and

I don't appear, you've got it up there.

God's intention. This is what you were preaching

just before you left. His intention was that now

that's today forever. That now is tomorrow.

When we get tomorrow, that's now.

It was now when it was written 2000 years ago.

God lives in the eternal now. God is not a time space

creature, we are God. What happened 10,000 years ago

is as if it were happening right now.

And if Jesus were to tarry long enough, if it was 10,000 years

to come, which I doubt could ever happen, it's just God

doesn't see that as future. It's now for God.

He lives in the eternal now. So all of his truth is the

eternal now. All he's promised is now

everything. And so his intention was that

through the church, that's us. That's the strongest believer on

planet Earth, and that's the weakest believer on planet

earth. If we've trusted Christ, we are

part of the church. Even if we want to cut ourselves

off from the church, we still remain part of his body.

We can sulk, we can stay away, we can do what we like.

We can strictly ignore people. Whatever we're we're still part

of the church. I want that to sink in.

Don't think because you sulk or do whatever you do, you're no

longer one of us. And don't think because you've

done something wrong against one of us, that you no longer one of

us, you with me. And what was his intention was

that the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the

rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.

That's the demon powers. Satan knows he's defeated.

He's like a roaring lion, but he has lost his teeth.

He can still bite and hurt just from the strength of his jaw,

like a lion with our teeth, but he can't RIP us apart.

He knows he's beaten. He knows this Bible better than

most of us. He knows what God intention is.

But the problem is that it only is.

It's only going to be through the church.

It's not that just because it's written in the Bible.

It's through the church that the manifold wisdom of God is going

to be made known to these real principalities of these

authorities in the heavenly realms.

If we could go to the next verse please, according to his eternal

purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord next

verse please in Him and through faith in him we may approach God

with freedom and confidence. You know that Jesus done done.

We're going to carry on with that.

Jesus actually said this so we he invites us.

He says come boldly, boldly, not cringingly.

Isn't that a wonderful thing? I'm going to finish that the

verse that I'm starting to quote, but isn't it wonderful to

think God, I've just sinned so badly right that very moment,

but I can get off and get on my knees and come boldly don't even

have to come cringing the oh God, I'm a Richard man.

I can come boldly knowing I am that, but I can approach that

throne of grace every time I need it to obtain mercy and help

every time I have need. That's what the scripture says.

I hope these things just well, not just here, they're here

moving to the next verse 3. We can approach God with and I

ask you therefore not to be discouraged because of my

sufferings for you, which are your glory.

Now the subject I want to cover this morning is why the reason

why we come to church, church meetings, we call it come to

church. We are the church.

We can't come to ourselves. We come to meet.

Why do we come to meet? And most of us have been around

for a long time and so many of us, if not all of us have known

some of these things that I'm going to share with you.

The why. But sometimes, through just

life's pressures, all the things that come upon us, the demands,

the conflicts, things that are said lightheartedly or said to

hurt, whatever, all these things are making an impression upon

us. You sit and watch the TV.

Everything you see there is making an impact upon your life.

And all those things are geared by the devil to discourage you,

to make you feel disqualified. Just think about it.

Why then do we come to meet these to meet on a Sunday?

And I'm going to be speaking primarily on a Sunday.

Our Sunday meeting, that's the first day of the week, was when

the Church of the New Testament actually met.

Not on the Sabbath, on the on the Sunday.

We are not Sabbatarians. It's the Lord's Day.

It's a special day. This is the day that the Lord

has made. It's every day, but he set aside

one day for us to worship and he says that some have, some will

worship other days than we do, but there has to be a day when

the church gets together. And in this country, by and

large, this is the day we do it, the first day of the week.

So why do we do this? In order to for me to try and

answer that, I want to just say that each one of us has to grasp

afresh this morning that there are a number of reasons why

people have descended into, I'm going to use that word, if you

don't mind me, descended into the reason why they come to

church. That's the first thing.

And the second thing is, if we're going to understand why we

need to come together and meet together on a Sunday like we do,

we need to understand what the Bible says we should be doing

and weigh it up with what we are doing.

Are you with me? So the first one is what are

these models, these examples that people began to set that

have now made? This is how church is done in

different places. And I've got a number of them

here. I think it's 8 or 9 very

quickly. Some of them I've shared with

people before, some of you will have heard some of them.

The first one is this, people have developed this kind of

strategy, this model, this modus operandi.

First one is what I call the pastoral church.

And everyone of you know that you want to be pastored you

because pastoring past being pastored is being cared for.

And we all want to be cared for. And God has appointed pastors to

pastor us, but He's also appointed us to care for one

another. If you read through Ezekiel 34

and some of those Old Testament things about the sheep and the

shepherds, you see that sheep should not be butting one

another, hurting one another. They should be caring for one

another. So we've developed a caring

model. That's good in a sense, but it's

in itself it's inadequate. And so many churches are just

pastoral. I come to the meeting, I want to

be cared for. I want everybody to fuss all

over me. It just gets worse and worse and

worse. And you understand this, that we

move from it being hymn centered to us centered.

And so many churches, that's what it's about.

They come to a meeting, they go home and say I did not get my

needs met. It's all about me.

I just want to say this very quickly, then I'll move to the

second one. No matter how bad the preacher

preaches and how things go in the meeting, if you believe in

the love of God, God will care for your needs.

I remember up in Zimbabwe once I went to a church up in Kariba,

like Kariba was the only church he was and I was we were not

preaching that Sunday morning, we're preaching Sunday night.

I went to this meeting and this man got up in all these robes

and garments and all the candles were burning and everything was

going on. And I don't know what he was

preaching about. He outside of the fact that he

said he used that scripture that who our names are engraved on

the palms of God's hands. God so ministered so deeply to

me that man did not know Christ. He didn't know Christ, but I got

deeply ministered to. Why?

Because you go to church at meetings knowing that this is

what God wants us to do and he'll meet our needs.

But we should never make that the reason why we go to church.

That's just part of the blessing that comes with doing what God

says. All right, Second one is that

people like the priestly kind of type of church where everybody

gets a chance to play their part, say what they want to, to

be heard. And their church is just like

that. Some of them started off really

well when they believed in the priesthood of all ministries, of

all the priests, of all believers.

But slowly but surely it degenerated until we begin to

give stories about ourselves, made it all about us, our needs,

get the focus on us instead of Him.

And that's the priestly church and their churches like that all

over. When I get a chance, I'm going

to jump in and say what I want to say, whether they like it or

not. Whether the problem is that even

sometimes when we speak about the gifts of the Spirit, some of

those gifts or what what is said to be gifts have no valid reason

for having been expressed in that meeting.

But we act like God spoke. And so eventually we just

descend into this priestly church.

The third one is the preaching church.

And so many people starts off well, we love the word of God,

but then we want to hear from a man or a woman who can, who's

really got the gift of the gab that excites us that no, I mean,

sometimes I've, I've been in meetings where I, I've just been

astounded, flabbergasted by the, the man's or woman's gift of the

God, the way they can pronounce things and say things, but I

don't know what they're actually saying.

Just wow. And so you find these huge

churches around the world that when that preacher leaves,

people just dissipate and gone was just a preaching center.

It wasn't a church. And all of us want to hear the

word of God, but we want to hear it under the anointing of the

Spirit of God. We want to hear it where God

gives revelation. It's not just how well can you

communicate. And their churches like that all

over the world, Some of them are in the 10s of thousands because

of the preacher, not because of it being a church.

It's just a gathering point #4 people that I call it the

praying church, people who like to pray, they only want to pray.

There's not enough prayer in this church, so I'm leaving.

People say we need to pray more, and I've essentially what that

wild prayer is. It is absolutely essential.

In the end, what it degenerates into is why aren't you praying

for me? There needs to be more prayer

about me. And so it moves from Christ

centered slowly but surely. None of none of this is

intentional until it becomes all about me again.

Praying churches. Now all of those things are good

and needed in the church, but in themselves they're not enough.

Then firstly there's the praise churches and these are the

people who want super bands, musicians, professional singers.

They want everything to just go well.

I want to get excited by the music and I just want to sing

song after song after song after song.

And it doesn't. It's not coming from here.

It's the band. I mean, I watched the mosh, but

you know that. Well, I can't do it anymore with

them. I'm sorry.

I'm still. But all this bouncing up and

down, that is just what happens in all the Worldly Raves

gatherings when superstars are trying to excite the people.

Get them going. And then the church brought it

in and so now we bounce around too.

And if we can bounce around enough, and I'm not against

that. I used to bounce around when I

could. I'm a little too old to bounce

now, but I'm just saying that that's what it becomes.

So that if it's not exciting enough for me, I go looking

elsewhere. That's the reason why they come

to church, the praise churches and then we get the presence

churches. They wanting the Holy Spirit to

manifest himself in a way that they want.

And if that doesn't manifest then they go looking for what

elsewhere. That's one of one of the largest

churches around the world is that group of people that move

from 1 so-called presence church to another trying to find this

presence instead of looking at what does the Bible talk about

the presence of God. You know, in the presence of God

there is fullness of joy and joy lusts.

Because if there's a if God's present in the meeting and I

walk out having been touched by God, God's present with me in a

very real way. Anyway.

I don't need the crowd. I don't need certain

manifestations to prove God's present, but they have

prescribed certain manifestations and they're all

over the world today. They're the second largest

church in the world. The largest 1 is what I the next

one I'm going to talk about. It's the phantom church.

What do I mean by phantom church?

It's the church just moves from one place to the other.

It doesn't feel like it's committed to anything.

It doesn't believe in leadership.

It doesn't have to roll up or be faithful at prayer meetings or

anything else. It's just, I just do what I

like, but I love God. We meet when we want to, we do

as we please, etcetera, etcetera.

The phantom church, they are all over the world.

That's the biggest church, the church group that just moves

from one place to another and never settles down and believe.

You see, to me, a group of people meeting two or three

together together in, in, in Christ's name is not a church.

It's a church when you have leadership.

It's a church when we submit and surrender to authority.

If we will not submit and surrender to authority, have

leaders. Godly, God appointed, God chosen

leaders. We're not a church.

We're just a group of people that meet and thank God we do

and we can. We can meet in our homes.

We can meet where we like, but that's not a church.

It can be part of the church. I hope I'm making sense and I'm

not being too hard or harsh. All right.

Then also the number 8. So I think that was the 7th 1.

The 8th 1 is what I call the professional church.

The professional church. What does that mean?

Well, everything is done like it's a business.

We do not do that or help that person because we, our budget

doesn't allow it. You know, when the church's

budget dictates what you get involved in, it's finished.

You might as well pack up because God only responds not to

budgets. He responds to faith, and faith

is the substance of seeing things that have not come about

yet. I hope you get with them.

But the professional church anyway, everything, everything's

excellent. It's got the best of this, the

best of that, all of it's equipment, all of its sound

systems, audio systems, everything is just so

professional. It's all worked out so great.

Nothing ever goes wrong. And then people are just

switched on by that and then we move on quickly to the one that

is biblical and it's called the prophetic Apostolic Church.

And I think if I got it right, David preached on the prophetic

Apostolic to some degree last Sunday.

I wasn't. Yeah, I was sick and, and, and

told me when she got home what happened there.

So the prophetic Apostolic or the Apostolic prophetic?

I've just used prophetic first because I've tried to keep all

those peas because you didn't pick it up.

And I only use alliteration so that you can remember easier.

There's no other reason for it. All right, So it's the prophetic

Apostolic Church and to be prophetic and to be Apostolic,

you've got to be able to see the future, but you've also got to

be be able to become the future. It's now you've seen the future

and not becoming it. The prophetic Apostolic Church.

The word Apostolic means to go, the sent one.

It means you don't stay, you go. Now, having said all of that, I

want to come back to all of that in a moment.

So that's the first thing. If we're going to understand the

why, we got to understand how these other things developed and

why they developed and why people are going to those

meetings, and yet they're so unbiblical.

So the second thing I said is that we've got to understand

what the New Testament teaches should happen in a church

meeting. And I don't know if we can read

all these scriptures. So I'm going to just this is the

New Testament, the Old Testament, and what happens in

heaven when Jesus is on the throne and the angels and the

living creatures and the redeemed and all of the prophets

and the patriarchs and even the apostles all worship with us.

Can you imagine that there's a day coming when Paul, Barnabas,

Timothy, Peter, James, John, Moses, Abraham, David, the king,

all of these people, we're going to see them.

I mean, just imagine you're bumping into this, just walking

through this crowd and hi, hi. How are you going, Paul?

So that's what you look like. I mean, that's serious.

What's going to happen, because it says in the Scriptures, when

Jesus comes back, he's going to take us to be with him.

And when he takes us to be with him, we're going to see him

first of all as he really is. And then you and I are going to

be like him. Can you imagine?

What does that mean? You and I are going to be like

him. Here I am standing up with so

hips. You know, we're getting older.

What? Whatever the case.

And then all I mean, I'm going to just be like Jesus.

He's never been sick. He's never got old.

He's never forgotten a thing. Memory is not part of the

problem for him. We're going to be like him.

Just imagine that. But anyway, let me try and get

back to all of this. So it's going to be, what is the

Old Testament? What is the New Testament?

What is it? The, the redeemed?

What do they do in heaven? Why this is what it is Psalm

149. We will read just that Psalm and

I think many of you know what's in there, but this is what the

Old Testament church, the redeemed of God's people, what

they how they what they even got involved in the trying to answer

the why Psalm. What did I say, 119, 149?

Sorry. I thought maybe Peter had got it

up there and then I wouldn't have to.

It's up there now. Praise the Lord now.

This is this is how the Old Testament gathered.

The Saints. Praise the Lord, Sing the Lord

to the Lord. A new song.

His praise in the assembly of the Saints.

That's those that look towards the cross.

We, the Saints that look back on the cross, they were the ones

that look forward to the cross. They knew that there was a Lamb

that was to be slain. They trusted God for their sins

to be forgiven, even though it was only in part until Jesus

came. But every one of those who died

in the Old Testament that looked forward to the Lamb will be with

us in heaven. So this is how they are.

Praise to the Lord, sing a new song.

What does that mean? That's what should be happening

in our meetings. I don't know about you, but in

my devotional time, I very often just sing my songs, my own

songs, songs that have never been sung before anywhere on the

earth. Do you?

And is it possible that that could happen for us as the

church, so we could start singing those songs?

You just come back from South Africa.

I remember one of the occasions when we were there when while we

were singing and praising God, we heard the sound up in the

rafters of this huge auditorium. And the sound was angels

singing. And then the new songs that just

broke out as a result. Just all over that, the

auditorium, thousands upon thousands.

I don't know that there was one person that wasn't singing a new

song. What I'm trying to say is that's

what God wants to happen when we come to church.

That we that that we come not just to sing the songs, that the

person leading the the music section of our worship time that

they've chosen, but that we sing.

And you see, the church used to do that, but then people began

to sing silly songs and people began to do silly things with

those songs. And so the church clamped down

on that and said you can't do that.

And then it all became microphone, not there, only from

here. And it's a hard thing when the

church gets grows, it's easier while we're small, but as you

grow, it's harder and harder to just let people be free.

But that's what God wants. Again, that was how they worship

God in the Old Testament. And you'll see that's all how

they worship God in the New Testament.

But reading on peace, Psalm 149 again, let Israel rejoice in

their maker. Let the people of Zion and we

the Zion of God today be glad in their king.

That's how they worship. They were glad.

They were glad to be with God's people.

They were glad that God was in their midst.

Reading on, please let them praise his name with.

That's it. Now.

There was a time when I used to be able to jump all around and

dance and carry on. I can't anymore, but I still can

sway. I could, you know, we'll get to

this, hopefully. I don't know that I'll ever get

there. But part of worship is to use

every part of your body, everything to praise God folk.

Is there anyone who cannot do this?

Put your hand up if you can't do this.

You see what's happened right now is I've swept away every

excuse you have as to why you don't.

Every one of us can. And in actual fact, Scripture

says we should lift up holy hands.

God wants us to use our these hands.

I think to my to my understanding from Scripture,

hands are for two things. One is to raise them up before

God and praise and prayer and the other just to discipline

your children. No, the rod hands are to give

love, comfort, encouragement. God doesn't slap people, he

disciplines them. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked

again. That's my problem as a preacher,

you pick up things in God and then you just, you get

sidetracked. Anyway, let's move on.

Let them back to that scripture, please.

Sorry, verse three. Let them praise His name with

dancing and make music to Him with tambourine and heart.

We can. Musical instruments are there

for God's glory, not for the musician, not even to excite us,

but we want to make everything available, use our whole bodies

and all the gifting to do what? To bring praise to God.

Moving on, please to verse 4. For the Lord takes delight in

his people. He crowns the humble with

salvation. Moving on, please let the Saints

rejoice in this honor and even sing for joy in their on their

beds. I just want to clear up

something here if you don't mind me.

Just decide to track. There is absolutely nothing

wrong with you lying on your bed and praising God.

When I wake up every morning before I get out of bed, I start

to sing and praise God while I'm in bed.

I do that when I get into my study, but I give Him a good

dose of my praise before I even get up and go to the bathroom

and then to my study to study the word of God and do some

serious praying. We should be praising God If we

can do that on our beds, how much more are we together and

their people here used to help us to connect with God.

Are you hearing me? Is that?

Let me just moving on. May the praise of God be in

their mouths and a double edged sword in their hands.

Why? To inflict vengeance on the

nations and punishments on the people.

To bind their kings with fetters and nobles with shackles of

iron. To carry out the sentence

written against him. This is the glory of all his

Saints. Praise the Lord.

You see, when the church begins to praise God like the scripture

says, it's like God can actually bind demonic powers.

And I believe that the more praise that ascends, the more

damage is inflicted upon the enemy.

If all Anna and I pray this regularly when we pray together

in the morning that the church would just praise God and

worship God like the scripture says so that the church and the

nation, the whole nation can be. If if all the churches today

meeting in this country, we're to praise God just like this old

covenant part today. Do you know what would be

released in this nation? The bondage set, people set free

from this binding, these fetters that hold the people down, drug

addiction, all the stuff that goes on starts to break off.

That's what revival brings. I remember reading of these

Hiberdean revival on the Isle of Lewis.

Men were underground, big tough mints, black with coal working

underground, and the people were out there praising God.

Just a few. No, they didn't even go into the

mines, but these miners would come out of the mines and fall

on their knees in repentance. Not a soul, nobody preaching

nothing. Why?

Because God was revival had come.

God was breaking the fetters when the church, if you and I

could come to church on Sunday to the church meeting with a

heart like this, you don't know what will be happening in this

area and have just spread and spread and spread.

We don't have to wait for the whole church to do it.

Let's be the part of the church that will do it now, next

Sunday. You'll come with a different

heart, with a different aspect, understanding of what God wants

done in amongst these people. All right, well, we can't.

Psalm 150 is another one. If you're making a note, I won't

read it to you. One Corinthians, Chapter 11,

reading from verse 1 all the way through to chapter 14, verse 40.

All of those things are what happens in a meeting, how you

break bread, etcetera, etcetera, which are things I'd hope I

could cover. But all of those things are what

God wants to happen. Gifts of the Spirit.

I'm hoping we can get to that. All right, so that there are

other scriptures I'd like to have given you, but I'm going to

leave it. Well, maybe I can just say make

a note of Ephesians chapter 5 as well, please, verses 15 to 20.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

So we're looking not only at Old Testament scriptures, but New

Testament Scriptures and then also Colossians chapter 3,

Colossians 3:16

verses 16 and 17. So now let's get back to why do

we attend church, whatever happens here on a Sunday, And

those leaders need to hear that. We need to hear that whatever

happens here on a Sunday must have global.

Ramifications Global. Global means more than in our

meeting. Global means more than Adelaide

and more than Australia. It means the whole globe.

So what takes place here? When we look at what can, what

the church should be doing, we can see we can have global

ramifications. You know Jesus when he walked

this earth, the 3 1/2 years that he equipped his disciples, Jesus

never stayed in one place for long.

He just moved around all over the place, city to city, village

to village. Sometimes he was out on the on

the next to the sea. Other times he was in the hills

or the mountains. Do a global ramific.

Jesus was never just saying it's all about my little community.

I don't understand how people can call themselves community

churches. Christ Church is more than a

community, the community. But the problem is that we may

be in a church that doesn't call themselves Community Church, but

we may have a community mind. It's no bigger than that, you

know, Jesus said this as the Father has sent me.

I was in heaven. I left where I was comfortable.

Can you imagine being Jesus, fellowshipping with the Father,

that intimacy, fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit, having all

the angels worship him, glorify him all the time.

And he left it as the Father has sent me.

So send are you. So Dudley, I didn't save you to

stay where you live. I saved you to send you wherever

I want to. Now it may only be down the

road, but it may be overseas. And if we and I don't catch

that, if we come with, I'm now 80 or 90 years old, I can't go

anymore. I'm I'm out of that one.

You've missed what God's about because even if you don't get to

go there, you can change the world globally.

If we come to the meetings, you see God's it's got to be the

meeting. God's not going to change the

world by Dudley sitting at home praying 24 hours a day.

If he was the monasteries would have changed the world long ago

where the monks cut themselves off from everything, lock

themselves away and they say they praying and nothing's

changing. It's the church through the

church, not through Dudley, not through Justin, not through

whatever your name is on your own, through us, the church.

So I hope you catch this is part of the reason why God wants the

church to meet. We haven't even got to the first

point really at the but God's intention was to go, never to

gather, to gather, yes, but never with the intention of just

that's where it ends. God's intention was to give, not

to just gain hold on to get. So when you come to a meeting,

I'm not talking just about finances.

Now, when you come to a meeting, are you coming to just get or

you coming to give? It's global.

All right, let me see if I can give you one or two of those.

Why do we attend church? I'm going to give you some

reasons. Now if you had your Bibles or we

won't read this now, but Acts chapter 2 verses 42 to 47 where

Acts 2:42–47

it talks about how why they get what they did when they gathered

together who had all things in common, etcetera.

But it seems they devoted themselves to the apostles

teaching to to our to fellowship, breaking of bread,

etcetera. But that's probably when they

came together. Acts chapter 4, if you make

Acts 4 · chapter mention

actually chapter 4 also, I think it's from about verse 43 to 47,

but also One Corinthians 11 verses 17 to 21, Paul speaks

about when you come together, your meetings do more harm than

good. Why?

Because we don't discern one another, why we should,

etcetera. But I have all these things I'd

love to have spoken about. Look again at One Corinthians

chapter 14, verses 28, verse 20 add to 39.

I'm going to skip a whole lot of this because I can see I'm just

running out of time here. So why do we come to church #1

all of this is found in what I've just said.

That kind of foundation upon we come to encounter Christ.

Now I'm going to ask you none of these.

This is to encourage you, but also to change.

Have I save a mind shift? How many of you sat up this

morning, got up and thought, I've got to get things done

because I want to go to the meeting.

I'm going to encounter Christ this morning.

I know I thank you for putting up your hands, but I'm just

asking you to answer these things in your, in your heart.

So few of God's people say one of the reasons I'm going to meet

him this morning is I'm going to encounter Christ.

That's why I attend meetings. I'm going to encounter him.

When I encounter Christ, my whole life is changed to

encounter Christ, let's listen carefully to me is to encounter

the King ruling and reigning in his Kingdom.

So the church needs to be a Kingdom hearted people and the

more that that church, if our church and so many of us have

been around for so long in Christ that this is so much more

easy for us at this stage than even these larger churches that

have got lots and lots of exciting new believers, which we

want. But if we could just get back to

this thing. We're part of the Kingdom.

We have for the king, not for ourselves.

We have for Jesus, we have that we can encounter him.

We're going to be equipped and enabled, envisioned.

We're going to be embraced by the king of all kings.

We want our church to be a Kingdom church.

I remember when Darren said to me right at the beginning of

that Kingdom life, when I started, we had to change the

name from something else. It was he said, we're going to

call the Kingdom off. I said it's a hard name to live

up to think about it, but that's what it is.

We should be Kingdom hearted people.

Life here should be Kingdom life in every church everywhere.

So do we come with that mindset? That's why God wants this little

white church together on Sunday. That's what I'm going to this

morning, to encounter Christ, to see the King and his Kingdom.

That's the first thing. There's so much I'd like to say

about that. The second thing, how are we

doing today? Time was we finish at 11, don't

we? No, go on, keep going.

No, I won't keep. I'll just maybe I'll finish on

this thing. We come to worship God now,

worship theologically. The theologians try to break up

praise and worship. Praise really has more to do

with his acts, his actions, his deeds.

The things that God does. Worship has more to do with his

attributes. He's who he is, not what he does

so much as who he is, what he is, all those wonderful

attributes. And when I get up in the

morning, before I get up in the morning, I thank him.

I thank him that he's the King of kings, he's the Lord of

Lords, he's the Prince of Peace, he's the lion of the tribe of

Judah. He is Emmanuel, God with us.

He's the alpha, he's the Omega, the beginning and the end.

He's the 1st and the last. And so I go through this loop

and Jesus Godfather, you are Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who

provides, and you provide all my needs through Christ.

You see, I linked the Kingdom, all my needs according to your

riches and glory through Christ Jesus Jehovah, Jehovah the Lord,

my banner and your banner over me is love.

And you so love me and you so love the whole church that you

gave us Jesus Christ, the Son, that whoever believes in him who

will not perish but have everlasting life.

Jelova Shalom, the Lord, our peace and Jesus, you are the

Prince of peace. You made peaceful.

You see, I hope you're getting what I'm trying to say here.

We to worship God for his worthiness.

That word worship is actually a shortened version of the word

worth. Ship what he's worth.

How much is God worth? Before I get out of bed in the

morning, I want God to know I believe you are worth

everything. You worth more than I can give

you. All the praise that I could give

you all day long still would not match your worthiness.

But I praise you. I pray to look.

I just thank God for saving me. I thank God for that little

Presbyterian Church back in Boxburg in South Africa, the

night I went there with the wrong motives to impress Anne's

parents. And God saved my life, changed

me, and he called me and he equipped me and he commissioned

me and he said start this thing that was NCMI around them.

I thank God, God's listening every single day of my life.

I think I've done that for now, 50 something years.

Every day I thank God for you people that we have a little

church so we can go to worship him, meet with God's people.

These are things that you and I need to be thanking God for

before we get out of bed. But how much more when we

actually together, the things we can thank Him for.

When we're singing our songs, are we praising God for his

worthiness or we're singing songs?

If you get the chance to be a musician or you playing that

musical instrument as worship to God, or you're trying to be a

good musician, you know, there's a church back in that relates to

us still in America, that when we first went to America and we

got to know these people, when they first started their church,

we'd been there for a few years before they planted this church.

They used to employ professional musicians, unsaved, to lead in

worship, and I try to say that now they're leading in the

music, there's no worship, and that they don't worship God.

We need to be worshippers, folk. And I'm hoping that I'll get a

chance to carry on with this because I've got about another.

I think about nearly 20 other reasons.

I think it's about 20. I don't want to exaggerate.

May even be more, but I know I can't get through it.

So let's go home today. Can I just ask you in Jesus

name, I implore you, please come next Sunday to the Sunday church

meeting. Not to Sunday church to the

church meeting with some of God's purpose for our meeting

ringing in your heart. And we may do it badly and we

might fell up, you know, like I would want to touch pray.

Part of the reason we come is to pray and say we might pray

badly. But let's even if we don't pray

out aloud, we pray. Don't just leave it to the guy

standing in the front. Pray when the preachers getting

into a little bit of strife in himself or herself battling,

trying to cross, get a hold of how to communicate.

Pray for them, but look at them. They don't know what they're

saying. They've forgotten.

As you get older, you forget more things.

I used to be able to stand up and just quote screams of

scripture. Now I can, I can still quote

dreams of it, but not quite as much.

And and I forget where those verses are in the Bible now 82

years old. You just get older.

You forget it when you see that, pray, Lord help them through

that. If you come in and you send

someone's battling, pray for them.

If they discourage, pray for them, etcetera.

Stand with me, please. I'm just taking too long.

You don't have to stand. I mean, just invitation.

If you sit too long, just gets a little bit hard on parts of the

body. Father, I lift my heart up to

you with your people. We come before the throne of

grace. Thank you that it is a throne of

grace, undeserved, unmerited, unearned, something we can never

pay for. The throne where you sit

enthroned. You have that sceptre in your

hand, that sceptre of righteousness, and to each and

everyone of us today, you're extending it, putting it out

like the king did in the Old Testament, saying you're

accepted. That's throne of grace.

We come and worship you. We acknowledge that you and you

alone are worthy. You're worthy of more than we

can ever give you, Lord, all the praise, all the worship, all the

singing, all our efforts and energies, things that we feel

are exhausting us. You're worth more than that.

Your deeds are absolutely amazing to us that you could

just say let there be. And all of this that we see

around us came into being and you could keep speaking and

upholding the whole entire universe, every star, every

planet, everything that's going on around us, all these things

men have launched into the the universe.

They all upheld by the word of your power.

You are all powerful, all knowing, all wise.

There's nothing you can't do. There's nothing you don't know.

You'll never, ever, ever find a thing that you can't do.

Our problems are small when we bring them to you, and so is a

church. We come before you, asking you.

Break into our midst every time we meet.

Break in and show yourself to be the King of all kings, the Lord

of all Lords. Lord God Almighty, you are the

King of the nations. Nations will bow before you one

day. Every knee is going to one day

bow before Christ, and every tongue is going to confess him

as Lord. And that's all going to be to

the glory of God our Father. We bless you.

I ask your blessing upon these people, God, they, your people,

they the redeemed, they the ones that you saw and you felt we

were worth saving. You shed the blood of your son

Jesus on our behalf and that blood keeps us clean.

That gun blood protects us. We just thank you Lord, it keeps

heaven open and access to you all through Christ.

So your blessing upon our families, those that are still

in Australia and South Africa, bring them back home safely.

Others that are travelling from South Africa back to their homes

around the world keep them safe at every level.

So we ask all these things with Thanksgiving and praise,

acknowledging that you and you alone are worthy.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Dudley.

It's amazing. Let's come with faith

expectation to every meeting. 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.