"Dream, Taste and be Transformed" with Ps John Peter // 19 April 2026

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Father, we worship you this morning.

You're an awesome God.

You're worthy of praise.

We love you.

We exalt you, oh God, this morning.

Mighty, mighty, mighty is our God.

Mighty, mighty, mighty is our God.

Father, we praise you.

We worship you.

God, there's a stirring in our hearts.

Lord, in the natural we could think, oh,

we've just come to church.

No, we've stepped into destiny.

We've stepped into a new place in God.

We've stepped into a new encounter with the

living God.

And this morning, Father, I pray that our

hearts, our hearts are open.

God, our hearts would press in.

God, our hearts would hunger for something fresh

in God.

Lord, right now, right now, we take authority

over fear.

God, we take authority over hearts that are

closed down.

God, we take authority over obstacles that have

been in people's lives that are just causing

them to face a black wall and feeling

that they can't make progress forward.

Father, we take authority over fear.

We take authority over doubt.

God, we take authority over sickness and pain

in people's bodies right now in Jesus' name.

Father, for those that are suffering pain, have

got sickness, right now, God, we speak healing.

We speak health in Jesus' name.

God, we speak a supernatural victory and breakthrough

in their lives in Jesus' name.

God, they came into church, they came into

a building, but they came into the presence

of God and their lives were transformed.

Never, never, never to be the same again.

They encountered a living, awesome God.

And Father, we praise You this morning.

God, we praise You this morning.

God, we praise You this morning.

We praise You this morning.

Just encourage just a moment longer, just keep

your hearts open.

Well, keep your hearts open always to God.

But just in His presence, I just really

felt upon my heart that we stepped into

church.

But I want to encourage you that church

this morning, we stepped into more than church,

we stepped into destiny.

We stepped into a whole new journey in

the kingdom of God.

This is not just the same old, same

old day.

This is a day of fresh encounter.

This is the day of wells being dug

and dug deeper.

This is a day of deeper refreshing.

This is a day of encountering an awesome

God.

And from that moment, being forever transformed.

And God, I speak that over every situation.

God, I speak that over every need right

now in Jesus' name.

That God, there's breakthrough, there's freedom, there's joy.

God, there's answers in this storm in Jesus'

mighty name.

And God, we worship You, we praise You.

Hallelujah.

God, we worship You.

Come on, let's give the Lord a mighty

shout and a praise.

We honor You.

We worship You.

You are almighty God.

You're almighty God.

And we love You, Lord, this morning.

We love You, Lord, this morning.

Hallelujah.

Father, we praise You.

We praise You.

We praise You.

We love You.

We honor You.

Man, what an awesome creative team.

I think many of them were here in

church worshipping before you guys got out of

bed.

Come on.

I love this passage of Scripture.

There's a number of verses I like.

But in 2 Corinthians, in chapter 3, and

it says, Right,

there's the Word.

Off you go.

See you later.

That's enough.

Jesus is enough.

Hallelujah.

You can be seated.

How about before you're seated, give someone a

high five.

Give someone a high five.

Give someone a high five.

I really do feel this is a time

of destiny.

This is a time of incredible.

You're sensing that excitement in your heart.

I think the whole Inspire Whangarei.

Come on, guys.

Get excited about that.

That is huge.

That is huge.

And, you know, God's lighthouses, God's cities being

built more and more.

Hearts being set on fire.

Lives transformed.

This is what we want.

I want to talk this morning, and, oh,

you never know where I'm going to go,

but I just, in my heart, I had

sort of three words that just really spoke

to me, and it's just three words.

And Pastor Jesse, come on, stirred you up

last week.

He said, come on, take notes.

Don't just, I wonder what that preacher will

say to me.

I wonder if it'll be all right, or

will I fall asleep.

You know, get your notepad out.

Get your pen out.

I want to, three words I just want

to really hone in on this morning, but

I just have that word destiny.

You and I will never be the same.

Destiny is written all over us.

We will never be the same.

Jesus transforms our life.

He takes us from glory to glory.

Yes, we sometimes have some boring parts of

our life and that, but we quickly get

out of those and get back on the

road again.

Get into the destiny.

Get into the calling.

Get into the steps of God, the ways

of God.

Keep on pressing in, Church of God.

Dream, number one, dream.

Number two, taste.

And number three, change.

Sorry, change, growth, transformation.

I just want to share a little bit,

before I get into that, and we'll head

to those three words a little bit further

on, but I just want you to imagine

this.

You're travelling along the road of life, and

then suddenly you hit a pothole.

Everyone say pothole.

I know you don't face potholes and difficult

rough patches in your life, but I've had

one or two in my life.

Suddenly you hit a pothole, some rough patch

in your life.

It might be a difficult event.

It might be some harsh words spoken.

It might be some family issue.

It might be a health challenge.

It might be an employment issue.

It might be something that's happening in work

or whatever.

You hit a rough patch, you hit a

pothole, and it's so easy to let these

events unsettle us, jolt us, try to derail

us, hinder us from moving forward, put our

mind in a spin, when suddenly we take

our eyes off the Lord, we take our

eyes off the destiny and calling that He

has for us, and we get all microscopal.

We get the old microscope out and start

to hone in on the problem and diagnose

and get down on our hands and knees

and look into the pothole and measure how

deep the pothole is and measure how wide

the pothole is and call the police so

they can come and look into the pothole

as well.

And so we love our potholes, and sometimes

we make a science of studying potholes, but

just realise in life we will have potholes.

We will face times like that, and they're

not always easy.

It's not always easy.

Trouble tries to cloud our vision.

Listen to that.

Trouble tries to cloud our vision, cloud our

perspective, and stop us from moving forward.

It really does.

Believe it.

Stop us from moving forward.

Some people in life are like this, and

I know none of you are like this,

and of course I've never been like this,

but you go along through life, you hit

a pothole, you hit an obstacle, you hit

a trial, and you crash, you fall over,

you veer off the road a bit, you

have a little bit of a cry, you

have a little bit of a weep, you

cry out to your mum, mum puts some

bandages on you, you slowly get up.

Sometimes earlier on it takes you quite a

few years to get up, but you finally

get up, and then you move on again,

only for another pothole to hit you.

Then out comes the tears, out come the

bandages, and you finally recover, and then you

slowly get up again.

And so that's sometimes what some people's lives

are like, but on the other hand, other

people's lives are like this.

Yes, they still face potholes, they still face

challenges, but I was actually talking to a

lady just recently, and she said, we're talking

about some of the issues and challenges that

she's had in her journey, but she said

to me, oh, but John, I'm feeling stronger

on the inside.

There's more of a fight, there's more of

a fight in me.

I used to in the past, a problem,

a trial, a challenge, and whack, I'm out

for a while.

Gradually I get up, but today, today I'm

so much stronger.

Yes, I've still got some challenges, and we

all do, but I'm stronger, I've got some

fight, there's something more happening on the inside

of me.

And I believe that that's where that place

of growth is, learning to persevere, learning to

fight the good fight.

It's a good fight of faith.

It is a good fight.

There is a fight.

Sometimes it's a fight to come to church.

Sometimes it's a fight to get to a

prayer meeting or get to youth group or

get to something.

It's a fight sometimes.

There's an opposition you've got to push through.

You've got to fight to get where you

need to be.

So back to this thought of travelling down

the highway of life and hitting a pothole.

You see, in the natural, and I'm sorry

to go into the science of motor vehicles,

but you guys are spoiled.

You guys are spoiled.

When you travelled this morning in your cars,

most of you have come in cars, you

had an incredible suspension in your car that

really hardly even let you feel the fact

that there were potholes or bumps on your

journey.

So I would like, Johnny, do you want

to just bring that bag up that's under

the seat?

I really don't want you guys to finish.

You might need to stay up here.

What am I doing?

I don't want you to, I don't want

you to sort of, oh, Pastor John preached

a message, but bloody fuck, I remember what

he talked about.

He just went over my head.

I had no understanding of what he was

mentioning.

So I just brought a little bit of

an illustration here.

And what I did, I actually found out

where, who was it?

It was Vaughan.

I found out where Vaughan lived and he's

got this monster truck and I thought, well,

he won't miss a shock absorber off his

monster truck.

So I snuck in there.

While I was in there, actually, by the

way, I should confess this, I did siphon

a bit of petrol.

So I siphoned a bit of petrol but

I stole this thing here.

Now, a lot of you, probably most of

you guys don't even know what this is,

but this is a shock absorber.

And so what actually happens, and Johnny, just

don't damage your hand and then maybe push

it on that bit of carpet so we

don't damage that.

See, what actually happens is that when some

shock or some weight comes on that, the

shock absorber goes down and it cushions the

effect of the pothole that you're going on.

So there's a cushioning and it gives you

a lovely ride.

And so you can, as you cruise down

the motorway, Ian, doing your work, reading meters,

you can sip your latte because the shock

absorber is doing all the work.

It's cushioning and you don't even know it's

working.

And he's got some muscles there, hasn't he?

He's actually doing quite well.

Maybe another 20.

It takes a while.

It takes a while.

And I believe that that shock absorber illustration

is the very life of Christ within us.

See, before we gave our lives to Jesus

Christ, before we surrendered, often challenges, difficulties would

come.

We'd try to solve them in our own

strength and in our own wisdom.

But now we've been equipped with Vaughan's shock

absorbers.

They need reconditioning, but they're not too bad.

And I want to just say to you

this morning and take that further into a

spiritual application.

You see, the greatest reality is that Jesus

Christ is our shock absorber.

When trouble comes along and we hit obstacles

in life, there's not the jarring, there's not

the tragic effect of that pothole on our

lives because there's the presence of God in

us to help us to journey through the

reality of that pothole.

It is Jesus Christ, not only Him, who

took the shock of our sin, our lostness,

our brokenness, our separation, our sickness, and our

disease, the shock of the devil's lies and

deception, and He willingly went to the cross

of Calvary, laid down His life as a

sacrificial lamb, conquered death and hell, rose victorious,

and is now seated at the right hand

of God the Father.

Jesus Christ is humanity's shock absorbers.

You cannot, as a human being, cope with

the shocks that come against you.

You will be defeated.

But with Christ in your life, I can

weather the storm.

Not just weather the storm, but I can

rise up.

Too many people live with their nose down.

We need to live with our nose up.

We need to live without, boy, it's dangerous

being on the front row.

We need to live with our nose up

because we're looking to Jesus Christ, the author

and the finisher of our faith.

There's no one like Him.

You know, the victory is in the fact

that Christ resides within us by the power

of the Holy Spirit.

We have the presence of God within us.

John 14 and verse 23 says this, Jesus

replied, if anyone who loves Me will obey

My teaching.

Man, that's important.

My Father will love them, and we will

come to them and make our home with

them.

Hallelujah.

Colossians 1 and verse 27 says, God has

chosen to make known to the Gentiles the

glorious riches of this ministry, which is Christ

in you, the hope of glory.

This is a message that needs to be

proclaimed.

I love this.

2 Corinthians 4 and verse 6.

Man, this is getting better.

2 Corinthians 4 and verse 6, and this

is powerful, and it says, for God, everyone

say that, for God, who said, let light

shine out of darkness, made His light shine

in our hearts to give us the light

of the knowledge of the glory of God

in the face of Christ.

And then verse 7 says, but we have

this treasure in jars of clay to show

that this all-surpassing glory is not from

us, but from Him.

And I just, what an awesome declaration to

make in our world today.

We need the presence of the living God

more and more and more.

Any opportunity to be filled up, any opportunity

to be strengthened in our faith that we

might learn the joy of having that powerful

shock absorber in our life to cause us

to rise up and to be all that

God has called us to be.

You know, it's so easy with humanity, with

our own frail hearts at times, trouble, bow

down.

Trouble, bow down.

Trouble, bow down.

But when we have the resurrected Christ within

us, it's different.

I put it like this way, it's very

easy to think, oh, if Christ is in

me, then it's easy.

I'm good.

No, it's not actually always quite like that.

There is often a battle.

But I think the wonder of that is

you can see yourself grow where once something

like that struck you and it took you

three months to get up.

But now I'm up within a month.

It used to be six weeks and now

I'm up in a week.

Because we learn to rise up and to

let God work in us to will and

to do of His good pleasure.

There's a working of His spirit, there's a

stirring.

Okay, I want to move on a little

bit more and I want to talk about

dreaming, I want to talk about tasting, and

I want to talk about being transformed.

I want us to go back into the

Old Testament record of Numbers chapter 13 and

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

it's talking about, remember the children of Israel

were in slavery in Egypt.

They had incredibly hard taskmasters.

They cried out to God.

God in His mercy and His power sent

Moses the great deliverer.

There was the 10 plagues.

They finally, Pharaoh released the Israelite nation through

the Red Sea and then finally they come

to the border of the Red Sea and

that's covering a lot of time.

Okay, then they come to the land of

Canaan.

The land of Canaan was the promised land.

It was really the picture of the more

that God has for us.

Egypt represents slavery.

Egypt represents bondage.

Egypt represents hard taskmasters.

And do you know in our world today

and we've probably experienced this at times in

our life that the enemy is a hard

taskmaster.

The enemy, the Bible says, Jesus said, the

enemy has come to steal and to kill

and destroy.

He seeks to destroy human lives.

He seeks to so twist their minds, so

fill them with substances, so break their spirits

that they just end up washed out, almost

hopeless apart from God.

But the incredible joy is that there's a

land of freedom.

Egypt represents slavery.

The land of Canaan, that Egypt represents slavery.

Canaan represents freedom.

You know, that's a powerful, powerful verse of

Scripture in Colossians 1 and verse 13 where

it says that He has taken us out

of the kingdom of darkness and translated us

into the kingdom of the Son He loves.

There's a translation that's happened.

You've changed your geographical location.

You may not realise it, but you've been

taken out of the kingdom of darkness and

you've been brought into the kingdom of the

Son.

He loves.

Isn't that lovely?

You're in the kingdom of the Son He

loves.

See, the land of Canaan is a picture

of the provision, the abundance, the victory and

the blessing of God.

Remember, these people had cried out to God

in their slavery and in their distress and

God had heard and answered their cry.

And that's Exodus chapter two.

God hears the cry of our heart.

God hears the cry of our heart.

God is not deaf.

God hears the cry of the human heart.

God hears the cry of the human heart.

And I want to talk this morning about

the 12 spies that went into the promised

land.

And God gave them three objectives with exploring

this land of Canaan.

They weren't going into occupied at that stage.

They were just going into this land to

explore it, to see what it was like.

God had already said to them that I've

given you this land of promise.

This land is yours.

It's yours to take.

But what I want you to do, I

want you to send these leaders, these spies

that were to go in and they were

to explore this land.

And I believe also this exploring of this

land of Canaan also speaks to us as

we journey into all that God has got

for us.

This really speaks to our lives, as to

our journey and us entering into our spiritual

Canaan.

And number one, I believe the objective that

God has in sending them into the promised

land is that they needed to capture a

vision of what God was doing.

They needed to see something.

They're only on a journey.

It was 40 days in that promised land,

but he wanted them to catch something.

He wanted them to see something.

He wanted them to capture a picture, a

glimpse of what God was going to do.

And many times God does that in our

lives.

He gives us a vision.

He gives us a picture of what's going

to happen.

He grips our heart.

He gives us a seeing, an ability to

just have a sense that in the future

something's going to happen.

It's something precious.

It's something you can't always even talk about,

but it happens.

I know for me, when I was just

a little whippersnapper, a young teenage boy, I

got water baptized, and it was a powerful

encounter for me and God.

And I experienced that moment where I knew

God was real.

And he placed his hand upon my life.

And I realized that truly, and it's easy

with words, but I knew that someone was

greater on the inside of me than what

I...

I used to struggle with some areas of

temptation, but when Christ came in, I had

a strength in me that was not me.

It was a supernatural strength.

There was a different...

I had a different calling, a different direction.

I wanted to go different places.

My mind was different.

And it happened in a time for me

when I was water baptized.

Proverbs 29, verse 18, a powerful verse of

Proverbs 29:18

Scripture.

All Scripture is powerful.

Where there is no vision, it says, where

there's no revelation, the people cast off restraint.

But blessed is the one who heeds wisdom's

instructions.

You see, visions and dreams are really important.

I absolutely believe that we did not...

I don't believe we came into church to

just...

Oh, I'm just going to church this morning.

See, when we come to church, I believe

it's part of encountering the vision.

It's encountering the call of God.

It's encountering what God's doing in my life.

It's encountering what God's doing in my family.

It's encountering and sowing into what God's going

to do in the years that lie ahead.

It's not insignificant.

It's not, oh, I'll just rock into church,

you know, just check this out, see what

it's like.

No, it's a divine appointment.

You're meeting with destiny.

You're meeting with something really important.

You're coming into the presence of God.

And that faith, that sense of vision, that

sense of calling is being stirred in your

life, is being fed so that your week

and your years and your months lie ahead

are different because there's feeding of that vision.

Dreams and visions are really important.

Acts chapter two and verse 17.

In the last days.

Well, is that now?

In the last days, God says, I will

pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

Your young men will see visions and thank

God, there's a lovely, lovely verse there.

And you older, wiser men.

There's hope for you.

There's some dreams there.

Come on, you guys that are over.

Don't mention ages.

Very important.

Dreams, visions.

Are you caught up with a dream in

your heart?

Is there a sense of calling or are

you?

Yeah, come on, stir it up.

It's good.

No, there's a calling, there's a destiny.

I just want to honour Pastor Don and

Julia.

See, I don't think we take them for

granted.

I really don't think we do.

But man, to have that couple and their

family and have just run with the vision.

Don't take them for granted.

Honour them.

And I believe we do honour them.

But look, to have that sort of input

on our lives to stir us up, to

run our race well in Roy and Denise.

It's God's calling upon our lives.

Their lives inspire us from their response and

it inspires us to run our ways.

We need that vision.

We need that calling.

It says that we're not to dwell carelessly.

We're not to be caught up in some

sort of worldly net.

We're not meant to live aimlessly, drifting with

the crowd without purpose.

You see, a vision awakens us to life's

purpose.

Vision awakens us to life's purpose, to whose

we are, who we belong to and the

purpose that God has called us to do.

Probably the greatest waste, the greatest waste, the

greatest waste on earth is a life that

doesn't encounter the purpose of God.

You think every human being, every little baby

that's born onto this planet, God's destined purpose.

God's destined purpose.

God's destined calling.

God's destined His life to be manifest in

their lives to glorify their creator and then

also to be a blessing in this world,

to bring life and transformation to our world.

You know, the Bible says, Ephesians 2 in

verse 10, it says that we are God's

workmanship created in Christ Jesus.

We are God's workmanship.

You are not secondhand.

You are not rubbish.

You're God's workmanship.

Make sure you look at yourself in the

mirror.

Do not frown.

When you look at yourself in the mirror

in the morning, you make sure you look

at your face, John Pearson, and you make

sure you say, I wish I had a

BMW.

I mean, I am God's workmanship created in

Christ Jesus for good works.

I love my face.

I do not reject this.

It is not perfect.

It's got a few crinkles and, you know,

but I love this.

Make sure you speak well of yourself.

Do not speak down about God's creation.

You don't ever do that.

You're God's workmanship.

I just wanna just quickly, a couple more

things.

Look, you know, dreams and visions are dangerous.

You know, you've really got the choice.

You know, bubble wrap, cotton wool is a

lot safer.

You know, and some people do that.

They just wanna live their life.

And what's the most comfort I can get?

You know, I wanna get the most comfort.

What's the fluffiest bed?

You know, the fluffiest socks?

The sheepskin on my motorcycle seat?

You know, what's the cushiest, cruisiest?

What's the best meal that my wife can

cook for me?

I want that sort of life.

I'm not gonna have a bit of ruggedness

and a bit of pain.

And, you know, you think of, I read

this the other day with Joseph's life in

the Old Testament.

And Joseph, in Genesis, Joseph, Genesis 37.

And it's talking about Joseph's life.

And, you know, Joseph and his technicolor dream

coat and his father's, you know, loving on

him and giving him favoritism and all that.

And you think of that 17-year-old

young man, God gave a dream to him,

17.

Oh, 17-year-old, they know nothing.

Why would God give a dream to a

17-year-old?

Apparently, our brains aren't developed until, you know,

25, 30 for some people.

But God gave a dream to a 17

-year-old boy.

And do you know what he did with

that dream?

He rose up and then he broadcasted it

to his world.

He told his family and they did not

cheer him.