Understanding the Kingdom of God (Pt 16) : Kingdom Authority vs. Institutional Religion: Building on the True Cornerstone

To prepare us for what he wants. And I had nine points, if you remember.

And I did three last week. It's all I got through.

And the first one was that a well kept heart produces good fruit.

And how do you know what's in the heart? Toothpaste tube.

Ever been to Clicks or Dischem Pick and Pay Checkers Spa.

And you go to the toothbrush section, there's the most wonderful toothpastes and they look good.

And the only way you ever know what's really inside is by giving it a squeeze.

Until you give it a squeeze, it looks fine.

And I'm particularly aiming this at Sensodyne, which my dentist told me to start using a few years ago.

Flipping horrible stuff.

I don't know why they don't just put sugar inside it. I suppose it defeats the purpose, eh?

A well kept heart that produces good tubes, good fruits is what he's after, number one.

Number two, feed the sheep, don't eat them.

We're not there to benefit from people, we're there to benefit them. We're there to look out for them.

And number three, we walk in God given authority, not institutional authority.

The scripture I gave you was Matthew 7:17. A good tree produces good fruit.

Matthew 7:17

A bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can't produce bad fruit.

A bad tree can't produce good fruit.

So every tree that doesn't produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown in the fire? Yes.

Just as you can identify tree by its fruit, you can identify people by their actions.

We never identify people by their intentions, it's by their actions.

How do you respond when you're under pressure? How do you respond in this life?

And so my first point for this morning is this. Understand where spiritual authority comes from.

There are two sources of authority, God and human.

And human authority can be obtained by jumping through whatever hoops are required to get the necessary recognition or certification.

But you don't get authority from God that way.

When I studied, I studied correspondence, my theology degree.

And one of the things they said to me at the time was, you know what? Why don't you come and

because you're paying a whole lot of money to study correspondence, come in and be part of the lectures for a while.

You can come and attend up to 50% of the lectures at Baptist Theological College there in Randberg.

And I remember once I decided, I've got a few hours, I'm going to do that,

and I drove all the way there and I sat down and I listened to some lectures.

Bear in mind I'VE been leading a church for four or five years.

I'm in the just forefront of God. What do you do next?

I'm studying, I'm doing this and I'm sitting in the room with a lot of wet behind the ear 18 year olds

who have already solved all the world's problems.

Everything's already sorted. So they're discussing deep theological discussions

over fancy haircuts and cafe lattes or chai lattes,

and they're shredding all the theologians and they're coming up with, I swear I did about two hours of this.

I excused myself and I never went back.

Because I cannot afford to sit in a room with a group of people who believe that sitting and writing assignments

and tests is enough to certify you to serve in the kingdom of God.

Because the church is made up of people weak, foolish, poor, rich, wise, old, young.

Where the certification required, the qualification for leadership,

the qualification to stand and do what God's called you to do, simply comes from this.

Wait in Jerusalem until you receive power from on high and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.

Can I tell you, most of the harm done today to churches are through qualified leaders.

They're the problem because what they're doing is they're putting in place institutional belief systems

and practices that often don't enhance the people of God to do what they're doing.

They hinder.

And I want to tell you, when you stand as a leader and say, I want you to know I am the leader,

you probably aren't in the home, husband or wife.

The more you have to demand, it's because you don't have.

Can I tell you, we're in Edenvale. The loudmouth in the pub,

not that any of us ever go there, but the loudmouth in the pub that you don't worry about him.

Isn't it a quick hook or an elbow and he sleeps.

The one you watch for is the oak who's just sitting, watching,

measuring distance between you and him, height, angle of jaw.

That's the one you watch out for, because he's going to sort you out. Am I right?

Dynamite, small packages.

A guy who has authority never has to tell you he's got authority

unless he's a traffic cop on the N1 at 140k an hour.

When an oak stands out like this, he's either a hijacker or a traffic cop, isn't it? He has to.

It was the qualified people who tortured, judged and killed Jesus.

Man instituted authority that couldn't see God right in front of them.

I want to ask you a question. How qualified were the following people?

Abraham, Joseph, Elijah, David, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah,

all the disciples, and most of the apostles, Bar Saul of Tarsus, who had studied.

The one thing they all had in common was a call and a commission from God.

And I want to say to you this morning, on this Pentecost Sunday,

I want to say to you that the call and the commission of God on your life

is enough for you to get up and start doing the things that God has called you to do.

It's to know that he is with you by His Holy Spirit.

And when Jesus saw institutional authority, he asked them a question.

Luke 23. Let me ask you a question first.

Because they said to him, where's your authority? Who gives you the right?

He said, let me ask you a question first. Did John's authority to baptize come from heaven,

or was it human? Where did John come from? A desert.

And I don't think that eating locusts and honey and wearing leather kit qualifies you for leadership.

But he was burning with a call of God.

He was burning with a conviction that God had put in his heart.

And he called everyone to repent.

Jesus was asking a real question.

If you can't answer where John's authority came from, you'll never answer where mine comes from

because you can't see what's standing in front of you.

These leaders were not being honest and they were not being authentic.

Everybody knew from John, chapter one, that John said that Jesus authority came from heaven.

And if John says the authority, if Jesus comes from heaven, then who's John?

That's where the question got stuck.

The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He's the one I'm talking about.

When I said, a man's coming after me who's greater than I am, for he existed long before me.

I didn't recognize him as the Messiah, but I've been baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel.

Then John testified, I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting on him.

I didn't know he was the One.

But when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, the one on whom you see the Spirit descend

and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

I saw this happen to Jesus. So I testify he's the chosen Son of God.

Recognition in the Spirit by the Spirit, from people called by the Holy Spirit.

You see, Jesus knew a power struggle was coming.

And this power struggle would last through centuries.

Can I tell you, there's very, very few people who've ever been offended or hurt by Jesus,

but they've been offended and hurt by the church.

And sometimes the very institutions we've set in place to reach out to the world as beachheads

are the very institutions that have done harm.

How's the world supposed to react when the church implodes,

when the church isn't doing well, when the church infights?

And that's always a result of institutional authority.

And Jesus knew this battle would go on through the centuries.

We were talking the other day how you can go into parts.

I don't name the countries, but you can go into parts. I can say you can go into places like Greece, Italy,

where every street corner has a church.

There's an institutional authority everywhere.

It doesn't mean people are coming to the Lord. It doesn't mean people are being saved.

But the institutional authority is there.

I have invited people to church and they say, Greg, I did church when I was young.

My knees can't take it.

What do you mean? All the kneeling and the sitting and the kneeling again

and the standing and the sitting again. Listen, I'm due a knee replacement.

I'm not going to do that either.

But when I invite them to our church, that's what they're thinking.

One guy even said to me, I'm allergic to incense.

So what do you mean? He said, no, it creates.

I said, you're not going to get any incense here. Institutional.

And Jesus knew a power struggle was coming.

And so the first thing he did was he said, you need to know where your authority comes from.

Good to get recognition from the land in terms of having the ability or the permission

to for instance, lead a church or whatever.

But your authority must come from God.

You must be called of him.

Can I almost say the biggest danger I think in the church sometimes is self appointed leadership

where you've got guys sitting girl in churches that you look at him.

He wouldn't know God if God walked past.

But someone made them a leader.

And I want to tell you what, when you stand in the place and you represent God,

you'd better know God's in the house, that he himself is there.

I remember when I first started in ministry, I quoted, which was quoted earlier this morning,

I quoted Exodus back to God and I said, God, if Moses said he won't go anywhere

if your presence isn't going with, I'm not going to either.

Because who's going to listen? Who's going to believe me?

And this isn't my idea. It's yours.

So I want to do what you've called me to do.

You need authority.

And can I tell you what? If you are sitting here this morning and you have authority from God

and in worship God told you to open up your home for a home group,

and you knew that something in you can do it.

All you need is that authority.

Come talk to us and let's get going.

You don't need to jump through any hoops. We'll train you.

You just say, God, here I am.

So that's Number one. Your authority has got to come from God.

Number two, though Jesus has to be your cornerstone,

there's only one way to live and lead.

You simply cannot work with or trust leaders.

Christians whose tongues, character and conduct is far from that of Jesus.

You see the institutional authority of the day, led by threats,

they led by warnings, they led by pressure.

And so Jesus deals with it with a beautiful story.

That's sad, but it's beautiful.

It's in Luke chapter 20, verse nine.

Luke 20 · chapter mention

And that's what I'm going to read in my Bible.

So if you have a Bible, you can. You can open it.

Luke chapter 20.

Luke 20 · chapter mention

If not, just look on the screen behind me.

Luke chapter 20. And I'm reading from verse nine.

Luke 20 · chapter mention

Now, Jesus turned to the people again and he told them the story.

A man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers

and moved to another country to live for several years.

So who owns it? Who owns it? The man who planted the vineyard. Right.

Who owns this church? The man who planted Jesus.

At the time of the grape harvest, he sent one of his servants to collect his share

in the crop harvest time.

But the farmers attacked the servant, beat him up and sent him back empty handed.

So the owner sent another servant.

They insulted him, beat him up, sent him away empty handed.

A third man was sent.

They wounded him and chased him away.

What do I do? The owner asked himself.

I know. I'll send my cherished son.

Surely they'll respect him.

But when the tenant farmer saw his son, they said to each other,

here comes the heir to the estate.

Let's kill him and get the estate for ourselves.

So they dragged him out of the vineyard and murdered him.

What do you suppose the owner of the vineyard will do to them? Jesus asked.

I'll tell you.

He will come and kill those farmers and lease the vineyard to others.

How terrible that such a thing should ever happen.

Is this protested Jesus looked at them and said then what does the scripture mean?

The stone the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.

Everyone who stumbles over that stone will be broken to pieces.

It will crush anyone. It falls on the teachers of religious law.

And the leading priests wanted to arrest Jesus immediately

because they realized he was telling the story against them.

They were the wicked farmers, but they were afraid of the people's reaction.

Jesus was quoting Psalm 118, 22, quoting himself as.

The stone the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.

Jesus was the stone to whom the people who were in charge couldn't come to terms with.

They couldn't cope with his kingdom.

They wanted to build their own little kingdoms.

They didn't want change.

And when he came, Jesus kingdom is an upside down kingdom.

It comes to address, it comes to pull down.

As a matter of fact, the best way you can describe to these Pharisees and these teachers of the law

what the kingdom of Jesus would come to do is if you were to read Daniel, chapter 2, verse 45.

Daniel 2:45

That is the meaning of the rock cut out from the mountain, though not by human hands,

that crushed to pieces the statue of iron, bronze, clay, silver and gold.

Jesus was and is the stone that will always crush idolatry,

institutionalism and the demons that sit behind it.

Jesus remains the rock, the cornerstone against which everything we do must be measured.

The path of Jesus crossed the path of the religious leaders,

but they never allowed their path to merge with his.

The narrow path of Jesus never merges with idolatry.

He confronts and he overthrows.

And the work of the Holy Spirit in you and I is to constantly get our lives

to begin to merge with with the path that Jesus is on.

He brings us into that place.

And how do we know we walk in the right road?

Number one, I have kingdom authority.

And number two, I recognize Jesus as my cornerstone and I start to measure everything by Him.

It's scary for me how much the average Christian prefers a form of Christianity

that ticks the boxes rather than going after and submitting to the presence

and the leading of God.

I wonder how many people.

Probably none in this room.

I hope none listening, none watching, who would go to a meeting

and the first thing you do is you set your timer because you know in an hour and a bit you want to be out of here.

I come to worship you, Jesus, but remember, you're on a time limit

and even my morning devotion, I've got to hit the traffic by half past six.

So Lord, when I start to meet with you, just meet quickly, please.

I'm on the clock here.

This is like the microwave ding.

I actually wondered this morning for a second.

I played with the idea of going to Andrew and saying, let's push worship another 20 minutes.

Yeah, yeah.

To the three of you who love that music,

I wonder how many others of us would have got unsettled thinking,

yo, there's still another preach coming here. Sheesh.

Or how many of us are saying, as the deer pants for streams of living water, lord, here I come.

Because how can you pray for revival?

What happens if it comes and then God decides for the next three hours he's going to do business with us?

But you put a roast in at 10, Lord, am I going to let you.

Am I going to. What do we sing? Let It Burn.

How does that song go? Let it what?

I want to burn for you.

I don't want my home to burn for you. I want to burn for you.

But Lord, keep my home safe.

But I want to. You hear what I'm saying?

It's scary how the average Christian prefers a form of Christianity,

the comfort of institutional worship, over the living reality of God in our midst,

where the song sheet is as set in stone as the ten Commandments.

Can I tell you, everything we do, from preach to notices to the songs,

everything we do has to be held loosely, saying, lord, where are you in this?

You cannot hold your song, cheat and say, holy Spirit, he's the boss.

And if we want to experience the presence of God and revival, like we've known in the past.

Do you know he literally takes over where he descends upon a meeting

and you look at your watch and three hours have gone.

You don't know what's happened. You submitted to your kingdom.

Not that that becomes the norm, but they become moments.

Israel goes to worship and suddenly the glory fills the temple.

They can't go inside, they can't do their job anymore. Why?

Because God's come, you wait.

Let him do what he does.

I think people don't want to be stretched.

They don't want God to occupy their lives.

What our true Holy Spirit times going to look like in the church on the 6th of July,

we starting evening meetings live at 5, and we're going to see what God does

and where he takes us and what happens.

And there's going to be moments where God comes in the house and we don't know what to do with it.

I'm warning in advance.

Can I give you an example? I'm sorry about this.

I wasn't planning on. But can I give you this Example, promise.

We had a Holy Spirit moment once in our church way, way, way back.

And the presence of God is there. We're in worship and the presence of God is there.

And we're standing in worship. Probably an hour and a half, just.

We don't know what to do next.

We're looking at each other. What happens now? Don't know. Okay, you know what happens?

The Holy Spirit starts to move and there's a lady back, right hand corner.

I don't know all those lights on under there. But she's at the back there, over there.

And she starts screaming.

Now we're trying to worship and I'm not telling you now to start screaming.

Okay, we will remove you. But she starts screaming.

But she's screaming and we're looking at this auntie, she's popped the ladies meeting.

She's the ugliest looking woman I've seen. No man I don't know how long.

Looks like the back end of a bus.

So you know what happens after the meeting? We go and we find out what's happened to her.

This is a lady who four years previously had been raped by three men.

And she said, I determined never to make myself attractive to a man again.

She literally put herself in a place where every man would find her repulsive.

That's why I used the example.

And you know what happened?

She had a moment at the bath three years later where God showed her

what hell would look like for the men who had raped her.

And what she was screaming was, forgive them, forgive them.

Forgive them, Lord. Don't let them go there.

And in that moment, she was forgiven and released and set free.

When she came back the next week, you couldn't believe the transformation.

And I want to ask you this.

Are you ready to cope when God comes?

When God deals with something hidden for three years,

causing such fear, such approbation,

are you willing to say, okay, God, we can cope?

Check how quiet it's got.

Because I want to tell you, when the king comes, he comes in ways you and I will not expect.

And so I'm asking you, institutional authority versus the authority of the Holy Spirit.

I'm asking, what does it look like when Jesus is the cornerstone,

when prostitutes and cripples and blind men and lepers push their way through sanctified meetings

to find the presence of God?

How are you going to cope?

Or is it going to be neat and tidy? Only the right sort of people.

Jesus, the cornerstone.

Way back in, Exodus 19:6, you will be my kingdom of priests.

Exodus 19:6

Isaiah 29:13, the Lord says these people say they're mine.

Isaiah 29:13

They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me is nothing but man made.

Rules learned by wrote Jesus.

The cornerstone.

Physical characteristics of a cornerstone.

It's placed at the corner where two walls meet.

That's what a corner.

If you've ever seen a cornerstone, that's what that thing behind me,

I looked, I only saw me there. No cornerstone.

Yeah, it's a place where two walls meet.

Provides the visible foundation point for the entire structure.

The biblical symbolism is it represents strength, stability and unity.

Jesus is the cornerstone of the church.

The cornerstone serves as the guide for aligning all the other stones

and it ensures the integrity and the safety of the building.

If you mess with the cornerstone, you mess with the whole building.

If you mess with who Jesus is, who you know him to be, how you understand him to be,

if, if you mess with him, you mess with the whole church.

If you get him wrong, you get the church wrong.

Is Jesus the cornerstone?

Our job is to align ourselves completely with Jesus

and to always deal with things that get in the way so that we're able to focus on what he wants.

Authority from above.

Jesus as the cornerstone.

Number three. I'll do this one quickly.

Embrace the ongoing battle.

You see, the religious leaders had all the right certificates, they had all the wrong hearts.

And in this parable of the farmer, the owner who leases the land to the tenant farmers,

which they understood that Jesus was talking about them.

There were prophets who had been sent by God to speak to Israel to say,

give me the fruit from my harvest, it's my field.

Israel is my vine.

I want the fruit from my vine.

I created them for me.

I want to love them, I want to nurture them.

I want them near me.

I want them to come to me.

And you know, if you've read the prophets, how often do the prophets go

and speak the warnings and the woes to trying to get the people of God back to God?

Surely you have read Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah and Amos.

Surely, surely you've read in your Bible how they cried as they called Israel back to God.

And when they called Israel back to God, who were they speaking to?

Not only Israel, but the institutional leadership of kings that they'd asked for.

And why did these Pharisees sitting in Moses seat know that this is being addressed at them?

Isaiah was killed by King Manasseh.

Jeremiah was stoned to death by the Jews who couldn't kidnap him and took him to Egypt.

Ezekiel was killed in Babylon after warning against Idol worship.

Micah was killed by King Joram, and Amos died of injuries given by Amaziah.

The famous prophets you and I read, all killed one by one

because they would not release control.

The battle is real.

And then Jesus gives this damning statement to them in Matthew 23:3.

Matthew 23:3

So pointing out to the scribes and the Pharisees, Jesus says,

practice and obey what they tell you,

but do not follow their example, for they don't practice what they preach.

These are leaders, are people who say a whole lot, but they don't do a whole lot.

Their inside doesn't match their outside.

They talk, but they don't have power.

It's the contrast between word and action.

And I want to tell you today a war is on again

where God is wanting the freedom of his people who understand something.

They understand where authority comes from.

They understand Jesus as the cornerstone.

They're willing to go to war because they want to free the church

from institutional authority that binds instead of releasing.

And I think God wants to release a fresh wineskin upon the earth again today

where people are free under his authority and power to do what he's called them to do.

Last second, last, number four.

Jesus was addressing them.

You know what they did? They justified, defended rather than repented.

They didn't take this very kindly.

I read you. No, no.

They then plotted how they're going to arrest Jesus because they want to get him.

Teachers of the law and the leading priests wanted to arrest Jesus immediately.

They realized he's telling the story against them.

They the wicked farmers.

But they were afraid of the people's reaction.

Remember, I ended there.

Let me carry on reading.

Watching for their opportunity, the leaders sent spies pretending to be honest men.

It's like a movie.

They try to get Jesus to say something that could be reported to the Roman governor

so he would arrest Jesus.

They pretended to defer to him.

You so wonderful. Oh, good teacher, I.

Oh, wow. Flattery, flattery, flattery.

But they're just trying to get him to stumble.

They have no pure motives in their heart.

Then they talk about taxes to Caesar.

Do we pay taxes or don't we?

What does Jesus say?

Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.

Give to God what belongs to God.

Can't win that one.

Then the Sadducees come.

This is even better.

And they want to trap him about the resurrection.

And they say, there's this woman.

I've got to read the whole thing.

She marries an oak.

They don't have a kid. He dies.

So according to the law, in Deuteronomy, the Brother marries her.

Seven brothers in a row marry this chick.

None of them have a baby with her.

Then she dies.

I am not surprised.

Seven brothers later, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?

I tell you, when you're in a corner, you start asking stupid questions

and you get caught up on the wrong things.

And Jesus has to put them right in eternity.

You see, they're not coming for answers when face to face with the Son of God,

they're beaten every time.

And you need to just understand that sometimes when you speak to people,

I cannot tell you about Jesus.

Well, where are the dinosaurs?

Well, how old is the earth?

Is God really God?

If God is God, can he make a cage that he himself can't get out of?

These are all the questions I get asked by very clever people

who the Bible says are stupid because the fool says in his heart there is no God.

Number five.

Jesus always confronts pride and arrogance. He never blesses it.

Jesus literally has to take them on in front of the crowd.

At the end of chapter 20, verse 45,

with the crowds listening, Jesus turns to his disciples and says,

beware of these teachers of religious law.

They like to parade around in flowing robes

and they love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces.

And how they love the seat of honor in the synagogue

and the head table at banquets.

Yet they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property.

And they pretend to be pious by making long prayers in public.

Because of this, they will be severely punished.

The decayed rotten hearts of Israel's leadership was in the place

where they were blinded to the goodness of God.

And so what does Jesus say in Matthew 23?

Blind Guides.

You are blinded to the goodness of God.

You're blinded to the activity of God and of the Holy Spirit.

Blind guides.

You strain your water so you won't accidentally swallow a gnat.

That's a small thing you get in Joburg's water things,

but you swallow a camel.

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of the law,

You Pharisees, hypocrites.

This is Jesus.

You're so careful to clean the outside of the cup of the dish,

but inside you're filthy.

You're full of greed and self indulgence, you blind Pharisee.

We can't say those things, but Jesus can.

First wash the inside of the cup and the dish,

then the outside will become clean too.

You know what Jesus is calling them?

Corpses with makeup on.

You dead. You're dead, but you look all.

But there's nothing of life happening inside of you.

The Issue is inside versus outside.

They see the problem of Israel's leaders.

Their problem is their hearts.

Remember I said this morning, God's going after the heart.

We got to keep this in mind as we think about ourselves.

Which then leads to note the last point for this morning.

6. Those are all negatives.

And if we want to see God come, if we want to see revival,

the sixth point is critical.

Are you ready?

Magnify or make much of your ministry

Own what God has called you to and recognize that you can do it.

God has created specific roles and responsibilities in the church

so that we can support and strengthen our being together as a loving community.

Have you noticed in scripture, for instance, how Jesus Paul takes

deals in Corinthians with a guy, commits adultery with his father's wife,

which is not his mother, his stepmother,

and rebukes and takes out of the church and in the next letter,

now restore that one gently.

But when someone is divisive, worn once, worn twice,

then have nothing more to do with him.

What is the scripture telling us?

Division breaks the church.

Division hurts the church.

Anything that breaks about disrupts unity.

What God wants to do, so what God does,

he says, you know what? I'm going to make this body safe,

free of institutional authority.

I'm going to put a body together who understand I have authority from God.

Jesus is their cornerstone.

They're watching their hearts and they're going to commit to walking with one another

in loving community.

They're going to learn to forgive 70 times 7.

They're going to learn to turn the other cheek.

They're going to learn that love covers a multitude of sins.

The church is the most unusual place on planet earth

because no matter what you've done, we will love you,

we'll care for you, and we'll see you brought through

and we'll see Jesus deliver you and put you back on your feet again.

The church will do that.

The world will reject you and make jokes about you.

The church will see you back on your feet.

But it requires people working together.

And in 1 Peter, chapter 5 and verse 2 Peter writes,

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

Care for the flock that's been entrusted to you.

Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly,

not for what you get out of it, but because you're eager to serve God.

Don't lord it over the people assigned to your care.

Lead them by your own good example.

Make much magnify your ministry.

Take your good example and let it wash over into the people that you deal with.

Well, I don't know if I'm able

well, 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 4, says,

2 Peter 1:4

we share in his divine nature and we escape the world's corruption

caused by human desire.

We share his nature when we're born again,

he something of the original intent of what God intended for us,

made in his image.

The Holy Spirit starts a work right through your life

to bring you back to the image you were created to be.

You are always a work in progress.

You are always the result of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Don't ever say, I can't do this.

And as we mature and as we get older,

we shouldn't get more difficult.

We should get more like Jesus.

And we become the fathers and the mothers that model to everyone

what it looks like to follow and walk with Jesus.

You're always a work in progress.

God's always going to get you to the place where you can do what he's called you to do.

In Romans 11:13, Paul says, I magnify my ministry.

Romans 11:13

In Romans 1:1, he says, I'm a slave of Christ Jesus.

Romans 1:1

The quality of a Christian depends on the interior life that he has.

What's in your heart, what's in your will,

what's in your thoughts and your emotions.

Can you describe to me the quality of your social relationships?

Actually, it's all summarized by one word, character.

And when you go after the heart, which Jesus is doing with his church at the moment,

he's going after our character, who we really are,

not who we appear to be.

My mother, bless her, when she was still alive,

watched a series on tv, this British series.

How many of you remember Keeping Up Appearances?

What does that lady's name?

She had the name of a plant, huh? Hyacinth.

Hyacinth Bouquet.

That's right.

Her real name was Bucket, remember?

And she goes, I'm Mrs. Bouquet.

They say Bucket.

And my mother, my mom was always tickled by keeping up appearances.

Can I tell you how hard it is?

It's far better just to be you.

Learn to lean into the Lord.

Learn to live a life of authenticity.

I think God is concerned with who we're becoming.

And in times of revival, what God does is

he helps us assume responsibility for the development of our own character,

the maintenance of our character,

so that we become pleasing to God and we become more like Him.

There's nothing like a life changed when a neighbor or a friend or someone

looks at you and says, I can't believe what God's done with you.

You used to be such a.

But now, wow, you are wonderful.

Are you hearing me?

And interestingly, when he said, jesus, repent

for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,

or repent for the kingdom of God is near.

What was at hand? What was near?

Jesus was saying, the kingdom that's now in me.

How near is the kingdom to you?

The answer is as near as Jesus is to you.

That's how near the kingdom is.

When he's far, the kingdom's far.

When he's near, the kingdom's near.

And as people looked at him and listened to him and received his ministry,

they realized the kingdom of God was there.

The kingdom of God was available to them

because he was available to them.

And when they received him, they received the kingdom.

I close with this, don't you?

And I want to be in the place where the people of our city

receive the kingdom because they receive

the Jesus that we're becoming like

the Jesus we're imitating

the Jesus we're submitting to

the chief cornerstone

with an authority we know comes from him.

To pull down strongholds and arguments that have been raised up

against the knowledge of God,

some of which by institutional church life.

And we come by contrast and talk about life in the Spirit

and what a people look like.

We have authority from God

who have Jesus as their cornerstone

and who make much of their ministry.

That's you stand with me.

I hear the young adults on Tuesday night,

they met there, just under 80 of them,

little adult group seeking after God.

I hear that the senior saints, just under a hundred of them,

sitting on Wednesday, come to pray on Thursday.

There's 250 people sitting, seeking the face of God together.

Go to a men's camp with guys being honest with each other,

praying with each other, being undone.

Worship this morning in the presence of God.

I really feel God's doing something.

He's always doing something.

But I do feel that he's getting our attention.

And he wants a people who will look like him,

who will reflect him.

People submitted to him because they love him.

And the scripture I didn't bring,

because I'm going to preach a whole sermon on it one day,

is this Rend your hearts, not your garments.

Rend your hearts, not your garments.

Garments is outer heart is in.

Bring your heart in a sensitive place to your garden.

Say, Lord, here it is.

I don't know my heart.

It's deceitfully wicked.

And above everything, I don't know this heart.

Think it's good.

My wife said to me yesterday, I've got a pure heart.

She said.

I told her rubbish.

I did.

I said to you, I don't.

You do I said, I don't.

What I can say before God is I think most of my motives are right.

I don't know enough about my heart,

but I know that enough of my motives are right.

Because I didn't choose to be here.

I wanted to do something else.

Never my desire.

So I can trust my motives more than I can my heart.

And I think we're going into a season where God wants us

to rend our hearts, not the outward stuff.

You know, who's going to leave out? Nobody.

And we're going to see hundreds and then thousands of people coming to the Lord,

and we're going to start meetings, and we're going to have to have more meetings,

and we're gonna have to have more meetings.

That's okay.

Why do you think we got a big building?

I mean, you buy taxi when you've got lots of kids, right?

You don't have a Porsche when you've got four kids,

unless two feel left out the rest of their lives.

And now they got to go for therapy because they weren't included.

And it was me, I'd have to sell one of mine to get the Porsche.

You moved into a space because God wants something done there, simple.

And you and I have got to be mature enough to hear what he's saying.

And I'm not the only one.

But some of you are going to start having sleepless, restless nights from tonight

because God's going to start putting people on your heart.

You've got to pray for that.

You've got to reach and bring here that revival can start with them,

that you, too, start with their families.

And we're going to carry the responsibility God's given us together.

But I'm telling you now, guard your heart.

Put it in front of him.

He's gone after your heart today.

So, okay, where am I in all this?

Not, where is that guy? Where's that guy? Where am I?

Help me, Lord.

Let the people around me, my family, my workplace,

let everyone see that I've given God my heart

and I'm asking him to work it with me.

Altar call in a moment.

But I want to pray, and I'm not going to say,

come to the front if that's you.

I almost want to say, if that's not you, come to the front

because you can pray for us.

And I tell you, the only people who come forward saying,

God's not working in my heart right now are all the deceived ones.

And we don't want you to pray with us anyway.

God is talking to everybody.

The only way you're not hearing him today is if your heart is hard.

It's the only way.

Pray with me.

Maybe lift your hands with me if you want to.

Lord, we come to you this morning as a surrendered people.

These are the hands of surrender.

This morning you tell us a good tree cannot bear bad fruit,

and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

You said it.

And so we raise our arms, Lord, in surrender to you this morning.

And we pray that by the work of your Holy Spirit on this Pentecost Sunday,

you cause us to be a people, Lord,

where our hearts are good, therefore the trees are good,

therefore the fruit is good.

And many can come and eat from our fruit.

And come and taste and see how good the Lord is

through the lives we're choosing to lead.

From today, minister to each guy and girl in this place.

Leave none of us out as we surrender our lives to you,

Lord, continue to work in us,

we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you so much for being a part of our meeting today.

Can I just ask two things?

The first is if today the message has in any way been useful to you,

would you mind just maybe liking it or putting perhaps a statement down

or a comment down that we can know how the ministry has helped you,

Maybe a thumbs up, maybe you can subscribe to the channel,

do whatever, just so we can know what impact this message may be having on you.

And secondly, you may be someone who's saying,

greg, I hear you.

And this hope that Jesus has for us can come into my heart and it can change me.

But the reality is that I don't even know if I know Jesus.

I want to say two things to you right away.

The first is he's near you right now.

The Bible says if you believe in your heart that he is the Lord,

and if you confess him with your mouth, you will be saved.

Which means you just need to where you are, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ

even now and just say, lord, here I am.

I recognize who you are.

I confess my sin to you.

I acknowledge you as Jesus Christ, the Lord of all,

the Son of the living God.

And I want to follow you.

I want to become a disciple of yours.

I want to give my life to you, Lord.

And you can pray that prayer right now between you and the Lord.

Secondly, you can get hold of us.

We could either send you some material,

we can put you in touch with a really good church near you.

If you live in our area, you can come to us.

You can find, follow us on YouTube,

but it is good to get connected into the family of God,

to get connected into a local church

that your life changes being surrounded with the family of God.

Please stay in touch.

God bless you.