Real Talk Friday - Pastor Tosh Sturgess

Welcome to Real Talk Friday with your hosts Rohan Das and Gus Urban.

In this groundbreaking podcast segment, we delve deep into the lives of individuals whose

journey has been profoundly transformed by their faith.

From the trial of adversity to the triumph of redemption, we explore real stories, real

people whose encounter with God has reshaped their existence.

Join us as we embark on a candid and enlightening journey where authenticity meets spirituality

every Friday on Real Talk Friday, part of Logan City Christian Church.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Real Talk Friday.

I'm glad you are here and we're so glad to have all our special viewers on YouTube.

We've seen that you guys are a lot of viewers.

We're so excited for that.

But we have a new guest today and we changed it a bit.

We thought that we would bring in a special guest, not from our church, but has an incredible

story so I'll let Gus do the honours.

Yes, hello everyone.

Welcome.

Today I just want to welcome a good friend of ours, Tosh Sturgis, Pastor Tosh.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Glad to be with you and welcome everybody who's watching in.

So Tosh, you know, I was reading some of your articles that were online and something that

really got me was you planted a church at the age of 26.

And you got saved at the age of 23.

I was 21.

21?

Yeah, I went to Bible college at 23.

Okay, that's right.

And then you got set free from addiction, which is quite a big story there.

It was, yeah.

So I want to go through your childhood and just talk me through how your childhood was.

Were you growing up in a Christian family?

I grew up in a more traditional Christian family that had some very strong ritual to

it and church was an obligation.

It wasn't a joy.

There was not much excitement or any real connection to the services.

And so it was a very, very well established mainstream church with schools and that kind

of thing.

And grew up, my mum was a teacher at that same school that I was at for my first four

years of primary.

And I actually, when I was very young, when I was about three or four years old, I suffered

very badly from asthma.

And I had to go to hospital one night and I remember driving into the city and my mum

saying to me, just, you're just going to have to pull the air into your lungs and push it

out because my airways were constricting so badly.

And yeah, when I got to hospital that night, long story short, I had an encounter with

God and I woke up the next morning and I just looked around the world and the ward that

I was in at about five or six in the morning when the sunlight was breaking through.

And I just thought to myself, what am I doing here?

Like, I want to be where I was just moments ago.

But then I just knew in my heart that God had put his hand on my life and he'd called

me to just know him and to walk with him.

I didn't listen to him at that stage.

I went through some series of issues that were extremely traumatic over the next few

years of my childhood.

And then a couple of years later when I was in about year four or year three or something,

I had an encounter with God at the church where my mum was a teacher for the school

and they were having like a charismatic renewal at that church in that time.

So that would have probably been 82 or 83.

And I started, I was really frustrated because I was a really good little soccer player when

I was little.

And I knew that I had to get down to this soccer tryout to make the A team and I was

a shoo-in because I could kick and run with my left foot because at that age no one could

do that with their left foot.

And so I knew I had to get down to training and there was no way my mum was going to get

me there.

And I just, something inside of me just said, why don't you pray because surely like God's

got to be better than playing soccer.

And so I started praying and as I was praying, I've kind of ran out of things that I wanted

to pray about, but I was so excited about praying.

Honestly, I felt this thing inside of me.

It was like, I'm just going to let you pray through me God because I don't even know what

to say anymore.

And I just started speaking in another language.

I had no idea what it was.

And the past, the priest of that organization, I saw him like the next day and I'm like,

so this thing happened to me and I explained what I shared with you.

And he got this stern look on his face and he goes, who told you about that?

I said, no one told me about that.

So I was standing over on those stairs over there at the back of the building and I was

just praying and that's what happened.

And he stood up and he walked away from me.

He didn't say anything.

And I was like, okay, that was kind of whack.

And so I didn't think anything more of it.

And then I heard the gospel when I was 13.

And I gave my life to the Lord there.

And then again, within a year, this church has a church split and really close and dear

people to me.

They got really hurt.

And so I was like, oh, this God thing's a joke.

If God was real, these people wouldn't be doing what people do.

And then some years later, I was 21, I thought I'm going to go and live my life out in the

world and do the fun of the world.

And I just found the deeper and deeper I got into that stuff, the more bondage I was under,

the more I hated myself, the more I hated the things that I was doing with my life.

And I was driving home one night and I was thinking, well, what's the point of it all

anyway?

And I have friends saying to me, because I was saying to me, oh, your life's great.

You're doing all this stuff.

Because I was at that young age, I was like 20, 21.

I was living, I was working at a pub down in Capella Bar and I was on the track to become

manager down there.

So they put me on as a duty manager, so the boss, when the boss wasn't there and they

were tracking me toward going further.

And I was just like, what's the point of all this?

Everyone thinks that my life is great and I hate myself, I hate what I'm doing.

And I thought, I'm going to go back and check that church out.

I'm going to go back because what I experienced with God was just revolutionary.

I put those encounters together with what I found about God when I was 13 and hearing

the gospel for the first time and actually understanding why Christ died to take away

our sin so that He can put His peace and His power and His righteousness on us and cleanse

us of our sin and introduce us to His Father and we can have a relationship.

So all that was like, it all kind of came together for me.

And I walked into this church at 21 and I was pretty strongly using drugs and I was

on the grog a lot because I was working at this pub.

And then I walked into the church and I just felt the presence of God on me.

And then I come back that night and then I gave my heart to the Lord.

And when I come forward, I was the only person who responded to the preacher's altar call.

I came forward and I bawled my eyes out.

I cried for the first time since I decided I didn't want to follow the Lord anymore.

And then I went home that night and I just knew I was set free.

I just knew I was set free from all the drugs.

I knew I was set free from the alcohol and I went back to the party house where I was

living with a couple of maids.

And I said to them, guess what I did tonight?

You know, like you did this, you did this, you did this.

Thinking of all this stuff that my life had been, you know.

And I'm like, no, no, guess again, guess again.

And they're like, no.

So eventually, what did you do?

I said, I became a Christian.

And they're like, you?

No way, not you.

And I'm like, yep.

And one of my mates goes, I bet you 100 bucks.

It doesn't last four months.

And like a little piece of my heart was like, oh, should I be betting?

So I said to him, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, if in four months I'm turned

away, I'll owe you 100 bucks.

But in four months, if I'm still going, you've got to come with me.

Yeah, do you?

And he's like, all right, all right.

So he did come to church with me one night.

He didn't give his heart to the Lord.

But he'd come to church and he was under conviction the whole time.

You can see the spirit of God there.

So that just changed me completely.

And the party house where I was at, the lads that I was living with, it's sort of like

they doubled down inside their habits once I said that to them.

Because they used to nickname me like, go hard.

That was what they...

Because I was always the one like, I was always the one who was like more into it than everyone

else and kind of pushing the party.

And so there's other names that they had for me, but I'm going to get it there.

So when I'd turned, it was like a real confrontation because I was the worst of probably the lot.

I instituted these rituals and habits amongst our crew and it was dodgy.

And they decided to dig in even harder and sort of say, we don't need to listen to you.

And so like I'd be up in the morning and I'd be reading my Bible and they'd get on and

they'd put stuff on the TV because we didn't have internet back then.

They'd put stuff on the TV.

I was like, I can't be in the same room as this.

And so ended up the manager's flat at the pub where I was working was available.

And I went to the owner and I'm like, can I move into the flat?

Because it was better for me to live at the pub than live at the party house with the

boys.

So I moved in the pub and I would get on my knees and pray every time I go out for a shift

and I'd say, Lord, I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to do, but I know that you're real.

And I just pray, help me to just love one person.

Just help me to just be your love to one person.

And that always be one person.

That always be someone that I could just share God's love to.

And then God started moving through me in that place and there was no one coming in

to share Christ with them.

They're all just workers or laborers or lawyers or whatever.

And so I just take an interest in them and start loving them in Jesus' name.

Just try to give them respect and hear their story.

And one thing would lead to another and they're drinking so their inhibitions are going down.

And then they start telling me all their life story about their daughter who's having troubles

or their missus who's been cheating on them or the affair that they've been having or

they don't know what to do.

And then after a bit they'd be like, gosh, I've just shared everything with this person.

Like who are you, mate?

What do you do?

And I'm like, it's my opportunity to just tell them about my life.

And if it came up organically in the conversation, it started to affect people.

And there's one night I prayed for this, there was this guy, he's drinking in this bar.

We had to close one bar early in the night and you close one earlier, the private bar,

we were closing that.

And I said, mate, when time's up and I'm going to have to catch off even if you go to the

other bar because you've had enough.

He's leaning up against this pole right in the middle of the bar by the end of the night

and I've been serving him all night.

And I said, that's enough for you, it's time to go home.

And he goes, come up the other place with me and come and party up there.

And I said, I don't go drinking anymore, mate.

He's like, why not?

It's Saturday night, what are you doing?

I said, well in the morning, I've got to get up and go to church, mate.

I'm not going to miss out on church.

And he goes, church, what are you doing at church?

I said, well, you know, I used to go partying all the time.

He's like, yeah.

I said, mate, I'll tell you what, I don't care about religion, but I know that Jesus

touched my life and I haven't been the same since.

I'm happy, mate.

I'm really happy.

I am.

I'm actually really happy.

I love waking up.

I love going out and doing stuff.

Like I used to have so much stress and anxiety and I had all these emotional problems and

not that they're all gone, but I love being in his presence and he's got so much awesome

stuff in the Bible.

And I'm like, oh gosh, I'm starting to preach here.

And he's looking at me like, and I'm like, and he goes, he starts crying.

This boy just starts crying.

He goes, I'm a good person.

I'm a good person.

I said, we all think we are.

Like I thought I think I am, but I know I still need him.

Like I really need him.

Like I need his help all the time.

And he goes, well, do you think God could do something for me?

I said, I'm sure he could.

He's done something for me.

You know what I was like?

I go, can I pray for you?

He goes, yeah.

And I say, I put my elbows on the bar and I lean over and I'm like, God, I just pray

you touch this black like you touched me.

You're alive.

You're powerful.

And so he's like, like he looks up at me and he goes, what did you do to me?

And I'm like, I didn't do anything, mate.

And he goes, I felt like electricity goes through my body.

I said, well, we just pray that God would do something for you.

I did think it was God.

He goes, I don't know what.

And then he looks at me and he starts looking around and he grabs his wallet and his keys

and he goes, I'm sober.

Oh, wow.

And he, and he, and he looks at me, you know, he goes, I'll see you later.

And he walked, I never ever saw that guy again.

I don't know what the heck happened to him, but that happened right, right there in that

place.

And I was like, wow.

Another thing happened.

There was a guy who was a duty manager with me and he was like, with those people who

got that role, you know, you've only got one manager on for the night, you know, you've

got, so you have to fill out their hours in other, you know, shop work.

And I guess I had more of a senior position to him.

And he was working the drive through that night.

So the bottle store in like old Cleveland road drive through liquor store right there

on Capella, old, old Cleveland road in Capella bar near the old dog track, the old swamp.

And yeah, we were standing there and it was before it was all closed off like it is now.

And I was sharing what the Lord had done for me.

And he played rugby in, in high school and he played hooker.

So you know, in the scrum, a couple of times the scrum had collapsed on him and he busted

his knees playing, playing rugby and another one he'd been spear tackled and he had a pain

in the back of his neck from being tipped up and dropped on his head in the tackle.

And so I'm just standing there just full of, full of youth and naivety.

Not knowing better, not knowing to trust my own intelligence or try to measure things

or be polished or anything.

I said, God can heal your neck.

I'm like, what did I say?

And he goes, do you think you can?

And I thought, I better say yes.

Yeah, I'm sure he can man.

And so he goes, pray for me now.

And like I'm standing, I thought, what a cool picture this is.

Like right here, there's traffic whizzing by, there's no one in the bottle shop.

I prayed God just because the pastor, you know, the pastor would lay hands.

That's how it works, right?

And he'd say, anyone can do it.

So I laid hands on him and I'm like, God heal him in Jesus name.

And he goes, whoa, that felt awesome.

He's like, man, that pain's all out of my neck.

And God healed him right there.

And so having those experiences, it became interesting.

You know, I learned a lot about church culture when I started bringing people from the pub

to church.

You know, people who, you know, who'd been drinking or a bit rough into this church that

like is pretty polished and everyone doesn't deal with those kinds of folk.

It was a very interesting journey.

And so then the elders of the church, they decided they wanted to disciple all the young

men in the church to make sure that everyone's legit.

But it was, there was this guy from down the pub who's bringing people to church.

So they wanted to sit with me to make sure I wasn't like turning up to youth to pray

for the young people with nefarious plans.

You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I sat down and they asked me God Bible questions and I did say, man, I got saved.

You know, like I got taken from darkness to light.

And so I had no problem asking me whatever question you want.

And I got 39 out of 40 questions right.

So the only one I didn't get right was what was the town that Jesus based his ministry

out of in the north when he was traveling around in that area.

And I'm like, I don't know.

Now there is.

Right.

So it's such a shame, isn't it?

I thought they would have gotten excited about seeing a person bringing unsafe people to

church and while God's doing something in this person's life and it's reaching out

to others.

And I guess instead of for them having that, you know, stir their life in a good way, probably

convicted them and go, well, I'm going to have to try and, you know, make myself feel

good and do something else.

And yeah, it's a bit odd.

I think it's indicative sometimes of any community that spends a lot of time amongst itself,

develops its own language and becomes cloistered from the broader community.

And what I didn't want to become a part of a religious club, I didn't want to become

a part of a group of people that are really nice to me and become like one of the nice

people.

I didn't want to learn the rules.

I didn't care about any of that.

And I probably still don't.

What I've found was when I reached out to God, he answered my prayer.

He touched my life.

He changed me and set me free.

And you know, it's just true that that's how God is.

That's who He is when you read the Scriptures, how personal His promises are, how specific

His direction is to people.

He's a personal God.

And sometimes it can be, and it can be a great criticism of the church as well.

I've been around church life for a long time.

Christians think they're elite or they're better than and that kind of thing.

And maybe some of those criticisms, they're accurate.

And we need to eat some humble pie.

And so we've been called to be servants of people who, as Jesus says, His desire is for

the least of these.

And Paul writes to us, hey, if a rich person comes and sits among you, don't move with

his fancy rings and his gold and whatever, don't give him a nice seat up the front and

make a poor person sit up the back.

Because in doing so, you're despising the poor person's maker and you're giving preference

to someone who just by their wealth, you want to give them say over the community.

And both of those ideas are completely wrong.

The community should be governed by the heart for the least of these.

And how much money you should have shouldn't matter in the slightest.

But I think practical running of a church and the pressures of life, sometimes those

pressures can just creep into people in leadership.

So we need to just keep a guard on our heart.

I've been preaching at my church recently out of the book of James.

And something that's been a constant challenge to me since I started reading these things

is in the New Testament, we don't really have so much...

We talk about the Old Testament being about law and the New Testament being about grace.

But the Old Testament is about redemption.

And it's about God's forecasting of the coming of the Messiah.

It's not about law.

It was all about placing laws in place that would forecast the coming of the Messiah,

because that was prophesied from the garden by God Himself.

And those laws were set up to show us that we need His mercy, not Christian performance.

The most quoted phrase in all of scripture is, for the Lord is good and His mercy endures

forever.

And the purpose even of the Ten Commandments is for us to see them as a mirror by which

we would humble ourselves and say, God, these simple things help me.

God, I'm broken.

I actually can't do this.

And then at that point of humility, that's where we find grace.

Exactly.

And those Ten Commandments, that same system was set up there as allegory toward the coming

and the fulfillment of Messiah.

But the things that I've been preaching recently, I've been really convicted out of the book

of James in chapter two.

James says, so speak and so do as those who will be judged according to the law of liberty.

Man, there's only three laws in the Indian Testament.

The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which has made me free from the law of sin

and death, the law of love, and the law of liberty.

There's only three laws.

Now, I'll tell you what, you want to live a free and an awesome life?

Those are three laws that you can embrace.

But as soon as legalism comes in and as soon as judging someone by their wealth or their

poverty, as soon as that comes in, you've got to let go of the law of the spirit of

life.

You've got to let go of the law of love and you've got to let go of the law of liberty.

You can't stay free when you're thinking in bondage thoughts like that.

But the call in Christ is constantly that, like even in John 17, his high priestly prayer,

my prayer, Father, is that they would be one with you as I am one with you.

I tell you what, you want to be in connection with the living God?

You can't have bondage, man.

You can't live in that heaviness and that judgmentalism.

All you can allow your heart to embrace is his love towards you and hope to be a vessel

that if you're smart about it, you can pour that love out and everything else just pours

out of that.

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things are added.

But sometimes we get so focused on the other things, we want to add them ourselves and

we cut ourselves off at the knee and forget that it's Christ in us that's the hope of

glory, not Christ who we're attaining to by our works.

It's the gift of righteousness that God gives to us that packs the whole kingdom inside

of it.

And some of us are trying to sit there and figure out how we can make our wrapping look

good instead of pull the wrapping off the thing and let it pour over us.

But the thing is it costs us.

It costs us our pride.

It costs us our vanity.

It costs us our agenda when we get deeper into ministry.

Oh, I want to see the church go from this number to that number and all we need to do

is raise this and do that.

And these agendas get ahold of us.

Instead of being crucified to that and letting God's life flow through us and watching the

abundance that God pours out in that place.

And so that's what's been a big journey for me has been watching this because I've passed

it for five years and in that five years I went from laying hands on the people at the

pub and leading people to Christ there and going out and planting this church as a young

man, very insecure, 26 years of age.

That's very young.

Got married at 25.

And then 14 months later we had a baby and then 14 months, then two months later went

and planted a church.

Wow.

Oh, wow.

That's a...

So we're real young, really inexperienced.

But man, I knew God was with us.

I knew God was with us not just for now, but I knew God was with us for the long haul and

I knew that this was going to be a season and He put it in my heart to the day, five

years, we'd be there for five years.

Oh, really?

Wow.

And for the first four years and 50 weeks I didn't see it at all.

Didn't see it.

Didn't see it.

Just like that.

And a rapid series of events happened and it was evident that that was what the Lord's

leading was.

Wow.

And so I was like, okay.

And so the church went from a church, an advertisement in the paper to a home meeting, started public

meetings.

In the first meeting we had 12 people there.

So that was like praise God.

Absolutely.

And then the next meeting we had six.

The next meeting we had four.

Oh no.

Then after that we had five.

We were just like, we're in this for the long run.

We're in this for the long run.

It doesn't, if it was down to whatever, it didn't matter.

But we had a couple of prayers at the beginning.

Yeah.

We had a couple of prayers.

There we go.

And it was like, it was going to happen.

And week on week it did.

And by the grace of God, by the time we reached four years, we took the church to a local

Baptist church that was up for rent.

They'd sold their property and rebuilt somewhere else.

But the old facility was still there in the middle of Wynnum.

And so we went there and we remained there for, it was another year.

It was like right on a year we were in that location.

And then that was right on the four years of the church plant.

And through a series of circumstances it was evident that, and I just, the Lord said, take

a break.

And we'd not done anything wrong, but I was pretty exhausted.

And we started with a couple month old child.

And then we had two more babies in that time.

And that was pretty cool, but pretty exhausting as well.

And so I took a break and got offered lots of different preaching ministry, but I didn't

take any of it.

And then got a job with a bloke who was an evangelist called Bill Newman.

And then through Bill's leading and other friends, I went out and the Lord launched

me onto the road to do evangelistic ministry.

Wow, that's incredible.

And so that happened within the space of about two months, that whole thing just exploded.

I was up in Southeast Asia a little bit doing ministry there.

Got straight back from 10 days in Southeast Asia.

And a friend of mine from Bible College, this great guy, he says, I'm going to America,

my traveling buddies pulled out on me.

My missus doesn't want me traveling alone.

Would you please come with me or she's going to not allow me to go.

And I was like, sure, like I'll go chat to the missus, but I can't see it happening because

I've just arrived back from overseas.

My missus has had our fourth baby.

I got back three days before the baby was born.

No way.

Oh, cutting it fine.

But by the grace of God, I was there.

And you want me to leave in a week?

I can't see that happening.

She's a real woman of faith and she's a missionary.

She grew up on the mission field and understood that side of ministry life.

Yeah.

Yep.

So I said to her, haha, guess what this crazy friend wants me to do?

And she goes, you should go.

And I said, we don't even have the money.

She goes, God's going to get the money for you.

Yeah.

And I'm like, that's pretty cool.

Yeah.

She got more faith than me.

Yeah.

So one thing led to another and the Lord provided that money.

And I flew out and went to America and went to this little cowboy church in in Bryan College

Station in the heart of Texas.

And it was sort of a church plant and they were meeting in a church tent.

Brazos Valley Cowboy Church, you know who you are.

And right out there on the Brazos River.

And yeah, they've got a building now.

Pastor Will Fountain's still there doing a great job.

And anyway, my mate, my mate Daniel Jones, he's called in to do, I think it was a week

of ministry in this tent.

And the Spirit of God just broke out.

The second, second or third night, an 87 year old bloke got healed of an ear that was blown

out in the Second World War.

Some was there to testify about it.

And then like the third or the fourth night, these really, really colorful deliverances

started happening.

Oh, nice.

Like just really loud, people running around and shaking their arms.

Yeah, yeah.

Like just really loud.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden, the tent was just packed and miracle upon miracle upon miracle was

just awesome.

Wow.

And there was one one old lady there, older lady, probably in her late 50s, who'd become

so tight, she couldn't move her bones.

And she was just in pain all over her body.

And instead of going to university, her daughter had become her full time carer.

Oh, no.

By word of knowledge, she was called out.

Daniel was praying for her and I was down praying with the daughter.

And as they were laying hands, she just had the anointing just touch her body and just

fully separate all of her, her limbs from the stiffness.

And as he says to her to lift her hand, she starts lifting her hands like this, she starts

crying and she raises up her hands and she hadn't been able to move her hands past her

shoulders for God only knows how long and then she was like this.

And she turns around and she looks at her daughter.

And her daughter was up the back and her daughter doubles over and lets out this this shriek

of like, relief.

Yeah.

And she falls on the ground and she's just like sobbing uncontrollably by the grace of

God.

And we didn't know the story about her being like mum's carer, but now mum's like able

to care for herself.

And she's able to go off to university.

And so she's on the ground just unconsolable in the goodness of God.

And it's like that scripture from Romans to like, it's the goodness of God that causes

men to change.

When you see how good God is and we're built to be in fellowship with his goodness, there's

nothing in this world that you can do that parallels to who he is.

Exactly.

No depth of depravity or no high that you can get on or no chemical or no relation,

nothing compares.

Because we're made in his image, we're made to reflect his glory and to be dignified by

his presence and to be re-dignified in the stuff that we've corrupted ourselves in.

And when our soul tastes that beauty, nothing like it, man.

And it's right.

Yeah.

Nothing like it.

That's who he is.

That's what he won on the cross.

He didn't die on the cross to make a bunch of nerds that sit in a club that think they're

better than everybody else.

He died to reveal his life to the people of the world.

The church isn't the Sunday group.

The church is the Monday group that go out and do what he does.

Yeah, there we go.

Yeah.

The church is the people who've been transformed by him that care to transform others.

And we all know as Christians that that's what our best is in Jesus.

There's a lot of conversation like living your best life now.

I don't know if that's come out of that Christian book, Your Best Life Now.

But I got to say, your best life comes when you are in fellowship with him and by the

love he plants in you, you serve other people with that because you never know what he's

going to do.

Absolutely.

You can't tell what he's going to do.

Absolutely.

And that is so exciting and being crucified to our sinful stuff and crucified to our agenda

and understanding that he is our treasure, our exceedingly great reward as the Lord proclaimed

with himself to Abraham.

As we allow our heart to embrace the fact that he's worth it.

And if things aren't working out well, that's a call from him back into his throne room.

That's a call to make a sacrifice of praise.

That's a call to come back into intimacy with him rather than letting my mood be determined

by what I see around me.

Yeah.

It's challenging and it's hard, but that's where the best of God comes in life and reveals

himself in life.

Well, that's right.

I mean, what you're describing there is, how would you say it?

A lot of us think about the prosperity gospel, so to speak, of it becomes selfish.

Yeah.

Whereas the very reason why God created us was for us to be surrendered to him, to worship

him, to live with him.

Amen.

And it's the total opposite.

Whereas I guess we as people can corrupt anything, right?

And so we look at blessing and it all becomes focused on us.

That's right.

Rather than being blessed to be a blessing and that sort of thing.

It's so true.

It's fantastic what you're saying there.

And so it's like this verse from Ephesians chapter three in verse 20.

Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to

the power that's at work in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all

generations forever and ever.

We cut that verse short in verse 20, but it's paired with verse 21.

And we want to claim the whole thing about exceedingly abundantly above.

Oh, you sow into the offering and God's going to bless you exceedingly abundantly above.

But that's not what it says.

Like what it's saying here is now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above

all we can ask or think or imagine according to the power that works within us.

So we've got to understand if when it comes to applying the exceedingly abundantly above,

that's a power that works within us.

Exactly right.

We've got to be a motivated unit of the kingdom of God.

We can't just be one that sits on the outside, gives all the language and expects all the

blessing support.

It doesn't work that way.

This unit has to be fully engaged.

And the purpose of our engagement isn't for the exceedingly abundantly above mansions,

Ferraris and share portfolios.

It's this.

Verse 21 goes on to says, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations

forever and ever.

This is the eternal purpose.

God is restoring all of the universe back to himself and we get to be a part of it.

Like that's the best journey ever.

And we would sell that so we could have a better car and sit on the sidelines.

Like what is it?

What do we want here?

Because if we want to claim that verse, we've got to understand that that verse is for the

activated me, not for the passive me.

And not all of us can be pastors.

Not all of us can be evangelists.

All of us can be like a person that's looked to with a title.

But the greatest title in all the universe is the title of son.

And when we look at God the Father in all that he created and all that he has headship

over, he has given all of that to Jesus Christ.

The Bible tells us that he's, in Ephesians chapter one, it tells us that he is now head

over all things to the church.

The Bible tells us in Colossians that all things were made subject under him, principalities

and powers and everything that is in all of creation.

Jesus Christ is King over everything.

But there's a position in the heavenly realms that's greater than King and that's the position

of Father.

And so often we think about our increase and the stuff that we want to have in an earthly

sense and we forget that the heart of the Father wants to know us and he's divested

all of the kingship stuff or the provision stuff or the power stuff into Jesus because

the Father wants our heart as a son.

And to know him and to walk with him as a son, that's what pleases his heart.

And that's what John 17, Jesus' high priestly prayer was all about, was about us being sons

to the Father like Jesus was a son of the Father.

And if you read through like Colossians, Hebrews chapter two and verse 10, it talks about Jesus'

role as the high priest being able to present many as sons to the Father, sons of glory.

He wants to show us to be his sons.

If Romans chapter eight and verse 28 for God say, I don't know, what's Romans chapter eight

verse 28?

It talks about God working all things for good for those who love him who are called

according to his will and his purpose.

That passage continues on and it talks about that how he wants to go and present us before

the Father in his own image.

And we've got this concept that church is this place that we can get blessed.

But when we flip it and we realize that we are the church and then being the church is

a place where God the Father can be blessed, that everything else takes care of itself.

I'll tell you what, I took on this church at the start of the year and I haven't passed

it.

I've been on the road essentially since then, you know, for 12 or 14 or something years.

And I took on a church at the start of the year and I got to the start of this year and

I'm like, Lord, my car's dying on me.

I'm living in Cleveland, driving 40 minutes to drop the kids at school at Ormo on the

Gold Coast.

And I'm pastoring a church on the north side of Brisbane.

But you told me to do this, so I'm doing it.

And now my car's dying on me.

And I don't have spare money to go fix the thing because I'd already done that earlier

last year and then the same problem happened again.

And I got five kids and I'm solo parenting and the pressure's on.

And I just decided, no, I'm just going to come into your presence, Lord, and I'm going

to use this as an opportunity to worship you.

I'm just like, I'm not going to be dictated to by this garbage out here.

I'm going to minister to you.

That's what I'm going to do in the face of the devil's accusations against you.

I'm coming into your presence.

I'm going to give you that.

Anyway, the Lord tells me to call some friends and send some messages out to see if some

of the donors who donated to my ministry over the years would be interested in helping out,

get a car for me.

And I got a news back from a few of them, I can't help you.

But one person called me up and essentially they paid for the whole thing.

15 grand like that.

And then my daughter totalled her sister's car.

And so I'm like, Lord, my daughter doesn't have a car.

She wants to do an internship, but I haven't got a car to send her with.

And then one thing led to another and bang, the Lord provided a car for cash, completely

cash, don't know anybody a dollar.

And it was like, you know, you're with me Lord.

I was flying over Dallas one time, flying in to do a couple of weeks worth of ministry

in the US.

And as I was flying over, I didn't have a car to drive.

And I've got all these bookings.

And I've got a friend who said to me, you can borrow my car when you come to Texas.

But he's told me, mate, I haven't got anything for you to borrow this time.

He's got a business with a handful of cars.

So I'm flying in on that promise.

And he tells me the day before, can't do it.

So I land and he comes and picks me up.

And I'm like, I'm just thinking to myself, I'm going to go rent a car.

But I'm flying in and the Lord goes to me, look down at the houses.

And I'm like, look down at the houses.

And he goes, now look at the cars and there's cars everywhere.

Just like ants, you know, at the top of an ant nest.

They're just everywhere.

And he goes, you know, I own all those, right?

I'm like, what am I worrying about?

And he goes, what kind of car do you want?

And I'm like, are you serious?

And he's like, you're going.

And so I said, and it was absurd.

It wasn't like a Maserati, but it was still ridiculous.

It wasn't like, I didn't say, give me anything at all.

He's like, what do you want?

I would have been like Ferrari.

I didn't have that much faith.

Right.

But it was, if it helps, it was important.

So I named the car and then I land.

My mate comes and picks me up and he goes, oh, I've got a car for you.

Oh, wow.

And I'm like, oh, sweet.

He goes, yeah, I had to put someone off and it was part of their agreement.

And so he said, you've got a good car.

I said, OK, thank you.

I didn't want to say what it was.

And he goes, do you want to know what it was?

And I'm like, yeah.

Because last time I was there, he asked me, what would your dream car be?

And I told him.

And it just happened to be that one, because that was where it came from,

like in my prayer.

And he goes, it's that kind of car.

And I'm like, yeah!

Thank you, Lord.

But like, I didn't need that.

But like there, I had that car and drove that.

But like when you understand that the Earth is the Lord's and everything

in it, the world and all who dwell in it, because he founded it

upon the seas and established it upon the waters, he made the world.

He created the world at Psalm 24.

Everything's in it.

He owns it all.

So what am I freaking out about?

It's just stewardship.

And there's no way I'm taking it with me.

There's no way any of us have taken our wealth with us.

We're only managing it.

We're only busying ourselves in managing it,

because it would be there if we didn't manage it anyway.

It would still be there.

It's still the Lord's to manage.

How good are we at stewarding and whatever?

The comforts that come from that, all those things

need to be stewarded and managed.

That's right.

But when it comes to the call of God, I've just found,

like I was sharing with you before the podcast started,

God started talking to me about we're going to put a cafe in at this church.

Yeah.

And I put it to the church after we'd raised some funds earlier in the year.

And I could tell people were looking at me like, oh, gosh, OK,

we need to raise more money.

Well, the next week, the Lord provided the coffee machine.

Bang.

Yeah.

And this week, didn't approach the church,

but two people put in three grand, and we picked up about $30,000

worth of stuff for the cafe.

Incredible.

God just made the way, because I want to just be in that place where

being on my knees is the greatest place in the universe.

We're being behind closed doors, having cleared my schedule out

to come and fellowship with you.

That's it, man.

That's my goal.

And everything that comes out of that, I've learned his goodness

because of his promises and trusting that as I walk,

he'll make the way for me.

And so that's been what my heart has been to serve him,

is to just see him do what he does.

All around the US over the years, we used to travel and do ministry

over there about three months out of the year.

Yeah, wow.

Year upon year upon year.

Had a car over there.

And then cutting a long story short, six-ish years ago,

just over six years ago, kid's mom passes away.

What do you do with that?

What do you do with that?

I've got five grieving kids in the middle of school.

So I've only been to the Pacific a couple of times

to do very, very short things for two or three days.

But even so, just being a parent in the home

and caring for the kids, my greatest blessing

is being with the Lord.

And if my goal is to spend time with him,

everything else is going to fall in place.

It's been a hectic journey.

But watching God just be with the kids and develop them,

they're all walking with the Lord.

And the three who've graduated high school, my third one now

is in an internship at church and loving it.

And the previous two have gone through, done the same.

And you can have a blessed life.

And you can have whatever the Father tells you.

Because Jesus wants to, according to Hebrews chapter 2

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

and 10, he wants to bring many sons to glory.

He wants to put the glory of God.

That's what Jesus's job is.

He wants to put God's glory on us.

And that's not defined by circumstances.

No.

I think it's the condition of our heart.

The greatest challenges the enemy brings

are always to take the great strength

that God has placed within us, spike us,

and then have us fall under our own weight.

That's exactly what he did with Adam and Eve.

He just deceived them.

Preach this stuff on the weekend out of James chapter 2.

James 2 · chapter mention

It starts off in there saying, do not be deceived.

And then later on, it says, don't be deceived.

Later on, it says, don't be deceived.

And they're just deceptions that the enemy does

to try to take those great strengths that God has given us,

all that great power, like the power for faith,

and turn that into negativity.

Turn that into presumption of bad,

rather than presumption of good, according to God's will.

He's given us faith, and we're going to exercise it

one way or another.

But through deception, the enemy takes our power,

and he turns it so that we destroy ourselves.

Just ends up corrupting every good thing

that God's given us.

But keeping our heart before the Lord,

things can just flourish with him.

And he's going to allow testing to happen,

because he wants us to see who we are

and the shortfalls that we still have, the father.

And James, again, tells us that any good father does that.

Any good father allows their son to be tested

so that they'll be able to grow from strength to strength.

And the challenge is, 2 Corinthians,

that we would keep our eyes on him.

Because as we focus on him and keep our eyes on him,

that's how we go from glory to glory.

It's only by seeing him in the midst of circumstances

that we don't like is that circumstance

going to be turned from a desert into a garden.

Exactly right.

It's always those situations we don't want to be in

that are ugly in appearance, but creates

such a depth in our lives.

Absolutely.

We were talking a couple of weeks back,

and we're talking about trials in the ministry,

and in church, and in life.

And I said something that along the lines of,

we've always seen God prosperous in our hardest times.

But then you mentioned something about two railroad tracks

running parallel.

Because that was a major blessing to me.

I sort of feel like those who are listening

would be truly blessed by this.

So if you could share about those.

Yeah, well, it's not mine.

I picked it up from a friend who apparently quoted

Pastor Brian Houston.

Oh, there you go.

So that guy has seen some good times and some bad times.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

But the idea is, we often talk about victories

that happen in ministry.

We talk about public stuff.

And if you're watching, pray for your pastors.

Really do, because you don't know what they carry.

A lot of the major problems that happen in their lives,

you've got no idea about.

You can't mention personal, private stuff publicly.

And the people that you can go to are very few and far

between.

And we were talking about some certain things along that line,

because I've had my fair share of those as well.

But this pastor, Gary Swenson, said to me,

look, basically, we oftentimes, all we can talk about

is the good stuff publicly.

And we want to give God glory for that.

Because the bad stuff, it often runs parallel to it.

And God uses both, like a train.

And he runs with part of his work

being done on the inner world of who we are

and part of the work being done on the outer world of who we are.

And he uses both.

And often, the good times happen parallel to the bad.

And we shouldn't despise the bad, because the bad stuff,

it's almost like a cliche, and people want to poo poo it.

But the reality is, the bad stuff causes us

to humble ourselves.

There's nothing wrong with humbling ourselves.

The scriptures tell us when we humble ourselves

under the mighty hand of God, in due time,

he will raise us up.

That's right.

And we make prayers to God, like, whatever

you want to do in me, Lord Jesus, do it in me, Lord.

Lord, bless me and let expand my tent.

And then he's trying to expand our tent.

We're like, Lord, it hurts.

You're stretching me too much.

And he's like, I can't give you the blessing and the comfort.

Which do you want?

If you want to limit yourself to the comfort, have that.

But if you want to be expanded, come

into the place of discomfort.

Come and find me in a place like you've never seen me before.

And ascribe to me the honor that I'm going to answer your prayer.

Expect that I'm going to answer your prayer.

And I'm going to do it.

But it's not going to happen in your routine.

It's not going to happen in your time,

because I want to do something greater in you

than you even realize.

And when we allow ourselves in prayer in times of fasting,

in times of humility and seeking the Lord,

not to be ones who walk around and, oh, I'm

fasting because I want the Lord to see how humble I am.

Forget that.

That's like the most arrogant piece of Christian religiosity

you can do.

Oh, look at how humble and meek I am.

Like, bleh.

Like, what spirit of man.

And what kind of a disciple are you

going to make by being like that?

But when you've met with God and he puts fire in your eyes

and he puts his spirit deep within you,

you can have the debt.

You can have cancer.

You can have whatever.

And if you've met with the Lord, you

can walk out of that room knowing that today I

can walk with the Lord.

He's going to carry me.

Yeah, that's good.

And if I'm to die, I don't care.

I'm going to go and be with him.

But I'm going to go and be victorious,

because he's with me.

I tell you what, that's, I believe,

the kind of conviction that was on the first century

Christians.

Absolutely.

That's the kind of conviction that was on the slaves,

that they just became fierce people who loved others.

And you see it throughout history.

The people who are remembered as the greatest

in the Christian faith, they are all

people who were great servants.

They were all people who gave greatly, who took steps of faith,

who took risks on God, who took risks on God's word.

People say that faith is the currency of heaven.

Well, I don't know.

There's lots of different things that move God's heart.

But I tell you what, faith always looks like risk.

Yeah, that's right.

It can be craziness sometimes.

It always looks like risk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And if we can embrace that and dare to sit with that

and not run from it and dare to allow God to frame himself up

inside that risk, nothing is impossible for those who believe.

So that's been my journey and just believing to see God.

Move at different places at different times.

And I've had lots of really great people

who have come across my path in my journey.

But the people who I have probably

got the most from, great leaders and some who aren't that great,

but people who have a deep, intimate connection with God,

who know God.

And when you talk about what God's been saying to you,

like a light goes on inside of them.

And they want to share with you what God's been saying to them.

Those are the people I find who move mountains.

And some of them aren't very famous,

but they do great things for God.

And they're the kinds of people, like I think King David said,

the godly in the land, they are my heroes.

And that's, I think, I don't particularly

think that being around people with position is the thing.

But being around people who really know the Lord,

that's a power to me.

Yeah, amen, amen to that.

That's some great story right there.

I only answered one question.

Well, God led you to speak such amazing words.

And while you were speaking, I was just

thinking about what was I doing at the age of 21?

Nothing good.

And I can see God move through you at that age.

And you are here now traveling evangelist.

And you've gone through so many experiences.

God has shown you such great things in your life.

And you are here because of the great things

He's done through you.

And we're grateful.

We are very grateful to have you in our show.

Thank you for just coming here and sharing this

with our church and our audiences, whoever's watching.

I believe that's really touched them.

And it just shows that we have this picture, as you said.

I, for a long time, had a picture that, oh, wow, a pastor.

He's so established.

He has the perfect life.

Oh, you know?

But it's not true.

There are, as you said with the track,

there are downsides to being a pastor.

There are challenges that you come across.

And yeah, that's what shapes you.

And that's what shapes your journey with Christ.

Thank you for coming.

And we really appreciate your input into our show.

We truly loved you here.

Unfortunately, we don't have enough time.

But we would love to have you again in another episode,

where we can talk more about your book, which you actually

made.

Numerous, actually.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, the kids one.

Yeah, the kids one.

Yeah.

But that's for another episode, for sure.

Thank you again.

What we like to do as we end the show

is just pray for our ministry, pray for our church,

pray for the audiences that are watching.

And that's how we like to end it.

So give you the honors.

Oh, very good.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Heavenly Father, we just come before you

in the mighty name of Jesus.

And we thank you, God, that you are

in the business of redeeming this earth to be yours

and to be working in the people who you love so much.

And Lord, I pray over this awesome ministry,

over this podcast, Lord, that everyone who's listening

would just be encouraged to find you in deeper ways

than ever before, that your word would be crystal clear

in our hearts and in our ears, that your direction would

be strong, and that your spirit would just walk with us

and give us courage to take risks on you

according to good faith, not presumptuousness.

And I pray, Lord God, that you would bless this church,

make it overflow in Jesus' name in all resources that it needs

and all personnel that it needs.

We pray, Lord God, for this city of ours

in southeast Queensland here in Brisbane City

that your spirit would move mightily.

We pray wherever this podcast goes throughout the world

that your power would ride upon it in Jesus' name.

And we pray, Father God, that as we move forward

into the plans that you have in this week and in this month

and this generation, Lord, that each and every one of us

would be so moved by your love for us

that we would never be the same again,

that we would see the moving of your spirit,

that we would hear your call to each and every one

of our hearts, and that we would simply please you,

and that, Lord, you would be our shield

and our exceedingly great reward,

that you would be our treasure, and that we would frame

our world so that you truly do take the prime place in all

that we do.

Father, we dedicate this broadcast to you,

and we dedicate our families and all around,

and we thank you, God, that you watch over us.

And until we meet again, we worship you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you all for joining on our beautiful

and exciting episode of Real Top Friday.

We have a lot of things going on in terms of our podcast,

which we'll keep you updated on another episode,

but thank you again for joining,

and I hope you have a great, great week.

We'll be back on next Friday.

Watch the week for the real Top Friday!

Thanks for watching.

And we'll see you on the next one.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

As we conclude our episode of Real Top Friday,

we extend our heartfelt gratitude to all our listeners

for joining us on this enlightening journey.

But our journey doesn't end here.

Join us every Friday as we continue to uncover

inspiration and hope in the remarkable narratives shared within the walls of Logan City Christian Church.

Thank you for tuning in and until next time may your faith journey be filled with grace, understanding and the unwavering presence of God.

Stay tuned for more Real Talk every Friday on Real Talk Friday.