The Purpose of the Presence

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Big welcome to all of our campuses, all of our prison campuses, and every one of you watching online.

We're so glad that you're here today to celebrate together with us.

Just want to say I had a really uh encouraging week.

Earlier this week, uh a new book of mine was actually released called Shine Your Light.

And uh this is uh a book that I wrote this winter, and I just felt the tangible presence of the of the Lord while writing it.

And it's key thought basically, its main message is one that I shared here at Gateway about two years ago when I used light bulbs as an illustration of the fact that whatever personality you have, whatever set of gifts you have, you can shine for Jesus and you can light up your world for his love.

And um, there's so much more in it, so many more stories.

The story of Sophie Scholl, the Christian German girl that stood up against Hitler.

I shared her story at the first conference back in January, and many other stories, a lot of Bible teaching.

You can uh grab your own copy in the bookshop of every campus after service.

If you don't want to, that's okay too.

I just want to let you know that it's out there.

Um, I'm so excited about a message that the Lord placed on my heart for this moment, for this weekend, and I want to speak to you about something that I call the purpose of the presence.

The purpose of the presence.

And we're gonna start out in Matthew chapter 4, the story of how and when Jesus calls some of his first early disciples.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

It says in verse 18 of Matthew, Matthew 4, that as Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers.

Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.

They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.

Come follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for people.

I love this statement so much because not only is Jesus giving them an invitation to follow, not only is he saying, Follow me, but he's also giving them like the outcome of what will happen if they accept this invitation.

He said, I will send you out to be fishers of men, to fish for people.

So right there, early in their calling, they realize that if I accept this invitation, then I'm actually not gonna be the main ingredient in this equation.

I'm actually not gonna be the main character of this movie.

This is all about bringing God's love to someone else.

And how come, you know, when we follow Jesus, when we get close to Jesus, our hearts will be, sorry, his heart will become our heart.

His passions will become our passions.

And he's been very clear with us about what his passions are.

In Luke 15, he compares himself to a shepherd that has 99 sheep, but he's lost one.

And he leaves the 99 in the desert and he goes to seek and to save that one sheep that was lost.

And he compares himself to a woman who has nine coins but she has lost one, and she lights a lamp and she sweeps the house until she has found that one lost coin.

Jesus' heart is all full of passion for other people, and the closer we get to him, the more love we will have for this world.

Amen.

So many people think that the more spiritual you become, the weirder you get, and and the more elitist you get, and the more judgmental you get.

Friends, it should be the other way around.

The closer we get to Jesus, the more loving we should be, the more relatable we should be, and the more passionate we should be for other people.

Amen.

That's what it's all about loving God and loving people.

So when these two men lay down their nets, they realized I'm not doing this to get blessed myself, but to become a channel for God's blessing into someone else's life.

Let me tell you a story.

Um, I'm rewinding tobacco when I was a 10-year-old Swedish kid.

And at 10 years old, I had a weird face right there.

I I was I had a face where I was passionate about monuments and statues.

I know, a nerd.

But that was my passion.

For about one year, I was all into monuments and statues.

I knew everything there was to know about the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Christ statue in Rio, the pyramids in Giza, Egypt, and every one of these like ancient seven wonders of the world.

And um, out of all the monuments and all the statues, I had one favorite statue.

And this statue was erected in the Soviet Union, and it was named the Motherland Calls.

Look at it.

I mean, what's not to love?

There's some energy and some passion in that statue.

I had a poster of that statue in my room just because I loved it so much, and it's huge.

That thing is twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty in New York.

It's absolutely massive.

Obviously, I never expected to see it ever.

And then after this weird face, I you know, as kids do, you grow, you leave stuff behind.

I forgot about the monuments, the statues.

I found new stuff to be passionate about.

Then, fast forward to the age of 16, I had a radical encounter with Jesus.

One year later, at 17, just one year old in my walk with him, I come to a conference, a Christian conference, and I hear a missionary speak.

This guy is going in and out of the Soviet Union, smuggling Bibles illegally, preaching the gospel illegally.

And he told us all these stories about how the Russian people were so hungry for God, having been deprived of the word of God for decades by communism, they were now so hungry and so thirsty for the word of God and the presence of God.

And as I heard this guy talk, 17 years old only, I just thought, I I would have I want to see this, I want to experience this somehow.

So straight after the message, I walked right up to him and said, like, can I can I whatever come with you?

Would you take me next time you go?

And he said, Yeah, sure.

I'll I'll be going again in a few months' time.

You can come along.

And I said, Great, I'll do it.

Only one small problem now, una problema minor.

There was Hispanic Heritage Week, right?

Um, I didn't have any money.

I just bought a motorbike, I spent every single dollar I had on this bike, and I didn't have any money, and it was kind of a costly ticket because it was Soviet Union, it was a visa process, it was it was a lot of money.

I thought, how how should how am I supposed to get the money?

But then, brilliant idea.

Because I was about to graduate high school, and in Sweden we have a tradition that when you graduate high school, your parents will throw you a big party, and when you graduate high school, your parents will give you a substantial gift, like if they're well off, it'll be a car or something, or at least an Xbox or something, you know, something.

So I sat my parents down and I said, Mom, dad, okay, two things.

First of all, I do not want a graduation party.

Number two, I do not want a graduation gift.

I want you to take whatever you plan to spend on the party and the gift and just give me the money.

And my parents said, We can't do that.

You'll be the only one without a party, you'll be the only one without a gift.

I said, Mom, dad, read my lips.

Cash.

Just cash.

And eventually they gave in.

And I got the money, and I could buy my ticket to go into the Soviet Union.

And I'll never ever forget this trip.

We arrived in Moscow, and our Russian Christian friends greeted us and met us up, and they got us in a car in the backseat, and the car took off like crazy.

Tired screeching, we were going.

I was holding on in the backseat for dear life.

After a while, they told us to they stopped the car, told us to go over to another car.

That car took off like crazy, a third car, and so on.

And I asked my missionary friend, what is happening here?

And he said, the KGB, the Soviet secret police, are on our trail right now because they realize we're up to something illegal and that they're trying to follow us and stop us, so we have to shake them off.

I said, Oh.

I used to watch action movies, now I'm in an action movie, and all I had to do was surrender to Jesus.

So eventually they shook off the KGB and we ended up in a house in the middle of the woods, completely isolated.

And um, as we walked into the house, it turned out the house was one big room jam-packed with 800 people inside.

And a service started, and we were worshiping for two and a half hours to start in Russian, and then my missionary friend got up there to preach.

He preached a solid hour, and when he was coming down to the end of the message, the people realized, Oh, he's gonna stop.

So they started booing.

Actually, the first time ever I've heard a message booed because they said, We've been walking for days to come here.

You cannot just give us one hour of preaching.

You have to understand they didn't have any Bibles, all they knew about God came from people preaching about Him.

So he went for a second hour and they made him go on after that.

So, all in all, he preached for three solid hours.

And at the end, I I saw he's getting tired.

Man, he's getting tired.

And then after the end of three hours, he said, Now we're gonna pray for the sick, and everybody went, Yay! And then he said, And my good friend Joachim here is gonna pray for them, and then he walked off stage and disappeared, probably to take a nap.

And I was caught completely off guard, I was completely unprepared.

Remember, I've only walked with Jesus for one year.

I've seen others pray for the sick, but I've never done it myself.

And now I got 800 people looking at me with expectation.

Gateway, that's 1600 eyes, full expectation.

I thought, what if I mess up?

What if I do this wrong?

What if I let all these people down?

But I I just thought, fake it till you make it.

So I got up there, try to sound like I knew what I was doing, and through my interpreter, I said, Oh, well, if you're sick here tonight, just uh come to the front.

Everybody came to the front.

It was like the whole army just took one step ahead, like, and I told my interpreter, No, no, no, I didn't say everybody should come to the front, only the sick ones.

And he said, Everybody is sick.

This is the Soviet Union, they have no health care, everyone is sick.

And I thought, where's my missionary friend?

Oh, left here with 800 people to pray for, never have done this in my life.

So I walked up to the very first person, a little lady, bless her heart, as you say in Texas.

She was about probably 80 years old, a little Russian babushka.

And I asked through my interpreter, What's what's wrong with this sister?

And she raised her arm at me.

And when I looked at it, it was the most horrible thing I've ever seen in my life.

It was like something out of a Japanese horror movie.

It was like a skeleton arm covered with gray skin.

I've never seen anything so horrible in my life.

And I thought to myself, could we have started with a headache or something?

This is the first person I'm gonna pray for.

But you see, the good thing was, Gateway, that I realized this is where Joachim ends, and this is where Jesus has to start.

Amen.

So I I took her hand in mine and I shivered as I did, and I prayed the simplest, most desperate prayer in I could pray.

God, heal her, please, in Jesus' name, amen.

And then I looked and I saw the first miracle I've ever seen in my life.

During the course of about 30 seconds, I physically saw how her normal skin color came down from the elbow to her wrist, out in the hand, and out in all of her fingers.

I saw the fingers that used to be like tiny sticks grow out to their normal size, and she started doing that, and she started shouting and laughing and crying, and I started shouting and laughing and crying, and everybody started shouting and laughing and quiet and crying.

For the first time, I had seen the power of God move, and I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

And as we moved on for 14 days surrounding the Soviet Union, we saw that all the time.

We saw the presence of God, the power of God touching life, saving lives, healing bodies, restoring souls.

We went up and down this, the Soviet Union, and just ministered to people, and every single day it was like I felt the smell of burning bridges behind me.

I thought to myself, I could never go back to an ordinary, lukewarm Christian life after this.

This is this is the best thing I've ever seen.

This is what it's all about.

Seeing the power and the presence of God meet other people and to be a channel for that process in any way I can be trusted by the Lord.

But one of the last days of this trip, we were going by car from one city to another, and I was sitting in the backseat, completely exhausted.

I was sleeping.

I remember I slept with my head up against the car window like this.

I've been sleeping probably for two hours, and all of a sudden, the car there was a bump in the road, and I opened my eyes because I woke up, and because I had my face to the car window, I just opened up my eyes, and we just passed the motherland calls statue up close, and all of a sudden they all came back to me.

I remember how passionate I was about this statue way back, how how I was so eager to see it one day, but thought I probably would never see it, and we just passed by.

Then God brought me all the beauty I saw during the trip, but also all these other things as a bonus.

And I know He will for you too, as we seek the kingdom of God, and that kingdom, my friend, is all about other people.

Let's speak a little bit, praise God.

Let's talk a little bit about person, purpose versus presence.

I want you to to uh to understand and remember that at the end of each of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and in the early the first chapter of the book of Acts, Jesus' last words to his disciples are recollected.

And when I read all these last words, I'm amazed that the same theme comes back all these five times.

Jesus speaks about purpose and he speaks about presence.

So I'm just gonna go through them really quickly with you so you under you understand what I mean here.

Jesus speaks about the purpose of us going into the world with the gospel and the presence, the promise of his presence, as we do.

Matthew 28, verse 18 to 19.

Matthew 28:18–19

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.

That's purpose.

Verse 20, and lo, I am with you always.

That's presence, even to the end of the age.

Mark 16, verse 15.

Mark 16:15

And he said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

That's purpose.

Verse 20, and they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs.

That is presence.

Luke 24, verse 46.

Luke 24:46

Then he said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

And you are witnesses to these things.

That's purpose.

And then verse 49 Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high, that is presence.

Gospel of John, chapter 20, verse 21.

John 20:21

Jesus said to them again, peace to you, as the Father has sent me, I also send you.

That's purpose.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit, that's presence.

And finally, the book of Acts, verse chapter 1, verse 8.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, that's presence, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

That is purpose.

Five times, can you turn to your neighbor and say five times?

Five times Jesus combines purpose and presence.

These two things will go together.

And it's so important for us to understand this because I do believe that in the past, especially the past few decades, we have started to somehow disconnect the two.

We talk about the presence of God, like presence conferences and presence worship and presence church, but 99 times out of a hundred, we don't associate that with reaching people, preaching the gospel, evangelism, outreach, and missions.

We associate that with something that happens inside the four walls of the church and that ministers to believers.

Now, Gateway, don't get me wrong here.

I love the presence of God with all my heart.

I love when we come together as a church to enjoy the presence of God, to worship and to pray and to just stay in his presence.

And I do believe that that presence is essential for this season that we're in in a special way.

That presence heals our hearts and that presence rebuilds us so that we become who we need to be for the next chapter of Gateway.

However, we need to understand and acknowledge that the original version, the main reason for the presence is the purpose.

The main reason for the presence is the purpose.

The presence of God is there to give you and I a heart for the lost of this world and equip us with power and strength and passion to go out of this church and heal the world outside of us in Jesus' name.

The purpose of the presence is the purpose.

And I believe that we especially need to be reminded of this because, friends, we live in the most individualistic and self-centered time in the history of mankind.

And I mean, we are we are not of the world, but we are in the world, right?

And it's so easy for the selfishness and the individualistic mindset of our time to affect and infect the way we think about even the way we think about faith and following Jesus.

And here is where I think we Need to understand that we need to return to the original version of Christianity, where the presence of God is there to give us power to fulfill the purpose given to us by Jesus.

Because if we allow ourselves to have our perspective infected by what is going on in the world right now, then we will become blind to the needs of this world and we will become blind to the people around us.

And speaking about blind, there is a story in Mark chapter 8, verse 23 about Jesus healing a blind man.

Mark 8:23

And as I read this story, there's actually so much more than a physical healing going on here.

It says he took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.

When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, Do you see anything?

He looked up and said, I see people.

They look like trees walking around.

And that's exactly where we can find ourselves so many times.

We have been touched by Jesus.

We have been saved by the blood of the Lamb, but still sometimes we see people as trees around us, as obstacles in our way as we head for the desires and the dreams of our hearts.

And you know, you would not really pray a lot for a tree, would you?

If you would, I don't want to be anywhere close to you.

I'm sorry, I just I just wouldn't.

You would not lay down your life for a tree.

And this bothered Jesus.

Jesus was not happy with the fact that this man saw people as trees.

So it says, once more, Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes.

When his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

And I do believe here today and in this phase that we are as a church, Jesus wants to lay his hands on our eyes again and open them wider than ever so that we see the people around us with the eyes of the Lord and with the love of Jesus.

And we realize that our purpose for following is not our own blessing or favor or prosperity, it's so we can channel the blessing of salvation to as many people as possible in this city and all over the world.

And I want to close by sharing a story with you.

You know me by now, you know I love stories.

But out of all the stories from history that I've read and I've used in my messages, no single story has affected me more deeply than this one.

And it's the story of a ship called the Empress of Ireland.

Now, this ship left the port of Quebec, Canada back in 1914, in the month of May.

1,477 people were on board this ship.

And I guess that when they left the port, they would have felt a bit uneasy because only two years prior, the great ship Titanic had perished.

But maybe they thought to themselves, well, such a thing cannot really happen twice, can it?

But unfortunately it did.

During the first night of the journey of the Empress, it collided with a Norwegian coal transporting ship called Storstad, and it started to sink.

Now, contrary to Titanic, which stayed afloat for three and a half hours after the impact, allowing a lot of lifeboats to be put into the water and a lot of souls saved, the Empress of Ireland sank in 14 minutes.

There was not time for one single lifeboat to be put into the water, and your only chance of survival was if you managed to get hold of a life vest.

When the first boats came to rescue the survivors, only those with a life vest had made it.

And it all went back to a specific group that was on board this ship.

120 young Christians from the Canadian Salvation Army that was on board this ship and in the process of its sinking had acted very unusually and very differently from everyone else.

One after one of the survivors testified about how they've been lying in the water without a life vest and realizing I'm gonna die tonight.

But then one of these young people had come up to them, swam up to them, and when they were close enough, they had taken off their own life vest and thrown it over to that person, giving away their only chance of survival to save another life.

And the most heart-wrenching testimony came from a 38-year-old man who ended up in the water after the Empress went down, no life vest.

He realized, I'm gonna die tonight.

He thought about his wife and kids back home, that he would never see them again.

But then all of a sudden, he saw a girl swimming in his direction, locking eye contact with him.

He estimated her age to be about 18, 19 years old, fighting the currents, fighting the waves to come close to him.

And when she was close enough, she took off her life vest and she threw it to him, and he took it.

Of course, he wanted to survive.

We all do, but at the same time, he felt so bad.

She's just a girl, she's just half my age.

I can't take this, she will die tonight.

So he threw the life vest back at her and said, No, save yourself.

And he would later say, as he gave his testimony, that when I did, she became furious, and she threw the life vest back at him and shouted out to him words that he would never ever forget throughout the rest of his life.

Take it because I will die better than you tonight, I will die better than you tonight.

The perspective of this girl and this group of 120 young Christians was that if I die tonight, I know where I'm going.

But if you die tonight without the saving grace of God, without having your sins forgiven by the blood of the lamp, you're gonna die into eternal separation from God.

So I'd rather give up my own chance of survival to give you another chance to get right with God and meet me one day in that same heaven that I'm going to tonight.

And when I read this, the first time I came across this story, I remember I had to close up the book and just sit there for a while because I realized I just looked into the eyes of the original version of Christianity to give up your life for someone else, following in the footsteps of a Lord who left his comfortability in heaven and came down to die not for himself, but for you and me.

And because he did, here we are today.

This was their version of Christianity that if I have to lay down my life, that's all part of being a follower, that's all part of being a disciple.

I'm here for the lost ones of this world, I'm here for the lost sheep, I'm here for the lost coin, I'm here for the lost daughter and son.

And I just let allow that story to hit me like a ton of bricks.

I shared it with a good friend in Asia, and his life was equally impacted by it.

And um he actually got hold of an artifact that I will I want to show to you here today.

But before I do, could we just stand in the presence of God?

I feel the presence of the Spirit, and as I prepared for this message, the Spirit spoke to me and He said, I want to I want to make do a heart surgery of love in the hearts of my people.

I want to place the love of God for this world even stronger in my people.

I want to touch the eyes of my people once more so that we don't see people around us as trees, but we can recommit to be followers of Jesus and live the original version of Christianity.

Now, my my friend in Asia that I mentioned actually got hold of one of the recovered ships' bells from this ship.

And I knew I was going to share this message with you with you today and share this story, so I asked him to send the bell over if possible, and and he did.

This is one of the ships of the Empress of Ireland.

The sound of this bell most likely was heard by those 120 young Christians and called them to pay the ultimate price and follow Jesus to give the final sacrifice.

Will you stand in the presence and just close your eyes?

Because I'm gonna ring this bell in just a minute.

And if you feel, God, I want you to touch my eyes again.

I want your love and passion for the lost.

I want to shake off the individuality and the self-centeredness of this age, and I want to recommit to following you and be your channel of love and power to the least of these.

I want to lay down my nets and I want your heart to become my heart.

And if you feel, yes, Lord, I want that, I need that, and I want to take the opportunity that this moment provides to say yes to that.

I'm gonna ask you to when I sound this bell, that those 120 young Christians heard over a hundred years ago, that you would simply make your way down to the front of this auditorium and all over the campuses when you hear the sound of the bell, just make your way down.

This is not a call for salvation.

I understand this is a call primarily for believers of God, but that need to recommit our hearts and just open up our hearts a little bit wider to fathom even more people and become even more and live with an even stronger attitude and identity of soul winners for Jesus.

So whether you're down on the floor or in the balcony or in any of the campuses, when you hear the bell ring, just leave your place, come down to the front.

You can kneel, you can stand in the presence, doesn't matter, as long as you open up your heart and say, Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, fill me.

Yes, Lord, break my heart if if needed.

Yes, Lord, I want to throw my life vest to someone else.

We recommit our lives to you.

We recommit our hearts to the original version of Christianity, we recommit ourselves to open our hearts wider than ever before and accept and receive your heart for this broken world in a deeper way than we've had.

Lord, we pray for our friends, our families, our neighbors, everyone that is part of our world, that we will love them with the love of Jesus, that we will lay down our lives, that we will throw away our our our life vest to someone else.

Father, touch our eyes again, touch our eyes again, touch our eyes again all over the campuses, Lord.

Touch our hearts, touch our eyes.

You've spoken about thousands of young people coming in to our church family, Lord.

We pray that we will have the heart for them.

We pray that you will find the passion and the love in our hearts to care for them, to shepherd them, to parent them.

Father, melt us into copies of your heart.

As we pray in Jesus' name.

If you come to the front, just stay in the presence of God wherever you are.

We're gonna dismiss the campuses and allow the campus pastors to take this flow of the Spirit on.

But while we stay in the holy presence of God, I also want to ask if if you're here and you yourself is in need of one of these life vests.

Maybe Jesus is not your Lord, maybe he used to be, but now you're not even sure.

Because things have happened and it feels like you've slid away from him, and you just need a moment to recommit and say, Yes, Lord, you are my Lord, and ask him to forgive your sins.

If that's you, I want to throw this life vest at you, not physically but spiritually, and give you the opportunity right here and right now to walk out of this room, walk out of this auditorium in a while, knowing, not just hoping, but knowing that you are a child of God, that you are a son or daughter of the Most High.

So while we are all stand in the presence of God and allow the Lord to keep doing a hard, beautiful work in our hearts regarding our fellow man.

If you're here and you need that life vest of salvation, wherever you are, just raise your hand if that's you.

Just raise your hand.

I'm not gonna call you to the front, I just want you to raise your hand so that this decision becomes clear to you.

Praise God.

God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you.

Thank you, Lord.

Up on the balcony, thank you, Lord Jesus.

Like, praise God.

I see your hand right there.

See your hand, your hand as well.

There's a whole family lifting their hands down there.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Jesus.

Anyone else?

This is just between you and God, but still, I lifted my hand when I was 16 years old.

It helped that decision to go down deep inside my heart.

And if you need to make that decision, then don't hesitate.

I want to say a prayer here, and we can all pray it.

You can all pray it after me, but but if this is your first time praying it, or you're praying it for to come back to God, pray it from the bottom of your heart, and God will listen to you, and that will be the life that He will throw to you throw at you today.

Let's pray like this.

Dear Jesus, thank you for loving me, thank you for receiving me and for giving me all my sins.

I confess Jesus as my Lord, and from this day on, I will follow Him, I will love Him, and I will serve Him for the rest of my life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.