I have the absolute privilege this morning of sharing the word with you. And I do consider it a privilege. Do you know all authority has been given unto us? All authority has been given to us. We just need to discover what that actually means and like my hubby preached this morning, who did so well. We have to feed our faith. Amen. That’s why the preaching of the word is so important because it feeds your faith. So that you can grow some spiritual muscles. Like Pastor Greg has spoken to me many times. You can go to the gym. You can read a book about the gym. You can get to know somebody in the gym. But unless you start lifting weights, you know you’re never going to grow muscle. And it’s the same with your spirit. Your spirit can’t grow unless you start saying yes to Jesus. Amen? Which reminds me that I’m sharing this morning on how important it is to serve God. And to say yes so that you can be blessed. Cause if you say no, you won’t grow. All I know is the people that keep saying no to the Lord every time he asks them to do something, he’s not going to give you another assignment until you say yes to the first one. Amen. And that’s why it’s so important. That together we build his house and we are so privileged to be part of this church. You know, King’s Church is awesome. Here at Reedy Creek over the last 12 months, go Reedy. Loud and proud, we are. Over the last 12 months, we have grown by 25%, which is absolutely incredible. Across every area of the church and I think that means one thing. Bottom line, you know, this is the mum of the house speaking. One of the mums, we’ve got lots of them here. But, you know, as a mom of the house speaking to you this morning, I want to encourage you to say yes to sign up to some area of serving in the church because we have an amazing volunteer army.
You know I look at these guys. Most of them have been here since seven this morning. You know there was a team of people setting up seats. Others were getting ready outside so that we could all have coffee and mingle together. There are 1 thousand jobs that need doing just to pull off a Sunday service. You know I know when my husband and I were the senior pastors of our church when someone said yes to serving God. It was like yes. You know because what does that mean? That means Pastor Shaun and Jess have got less to do. It means Ash and Nathan have got less to do. If we’ve got 50 people on the volunteer register to cook sausages, guess what? They only have to do one service. You know a year. If we had every parent in the house say yes to serving in the children’s church. And it’s not that we’re going to get you to stand out the front and teach and even if you go in to help with class control which when you’ve got children you need. You know and let the leaders lead in there then if every parent signed up to the roster the leaders could just concentrate on leading while the parents participated in helping just to supervise the children. So there’s lots of areas. Community care. Is Shirley here this morning? No, she’s probably busy in the community. Oh in New Zealand? That’s a long way from home. Which reminds me. I must say hello to those watching by video. I forget that this is actually going live. And that there’s people. But one thing I thought this morning for those of you that are online, it’s very hard to serve from your lounge room. I want to encourage you unless you’re sick or disabled and can’t get here then make an effort to come to the house. Because something happens when we’re in the same physical space. Together. Amen. It’s really important that we meet together. Okay let’s get going. I’m so excited because I get to share some of my favourite scriptures. I don’t have one favourite scripture. I love the whole book. Amen. So it’s hard for me to decide one scripture.
Let’s start with this. Matthew 20. And this is from the Passion Translation. I’m a pretty passionate person. So this is right up my alley. It says from verse twenty-five, it says Jesus knows their thoughts. He knows what you’re thinking. Oh here she goes. She’s trying to talk me into doing something. Well you’re right I am. It says, he calls them to his side and said, kings and those with great authority in this world, rule oppressively over their subjects like tyrants. So, we’re not going to have a register where you’ve got to sign in blood that you’re going to do something before you leave, amen? We’re not going to push you like a tyrant would. I mean, I can remember saying to my eldest son, once and I said to him, because I’m a strong personality. I’m very bossy and pushy and all the stuff that goes with a strong female personality and it’s a real advantage. Other times it’s not good. But I said to my son you gotta understand something. I want to control you. You know, I was honest. Amen. I said, I’m really resisting not doing that. That’s not what we’re talking about here. It says, great authority in this world, rule oppressively over their subjects. And for some husbands and wives, who try to control the household. This is a real word for you. Because that’s not what we’re talking about. You can try and control your husband or wife. You can try and control them out of the kingdom. And I’ve seen a lot of husbands and wives do that. Amen. But it says here. But this is not your calling. We as Christians that’s not how we operate. Amen. It says you will lead by a completely different model. The greatest one among you will live as the one who was called to serve others. Because the greatest honour and authority is reserved for the one with a heart of a servant.
Some people, lord, let me just say the last bit before I get carried away. It says, but even the son of man did not come expecting to be served but to serve and give his life in exchange for the salvation of many. Would you give your life even if it’s only in a small way for the salvation of many? I know when we first got saved, and it was cool while it was my idea. But then as Pastor Greg sort of got more hope for God because I got saved first, and he followed a few months later. He decided he wanted to go into ministry. Well I didn’t think that was a very good idea. I want to be in church but that’s ridiculous. I’m not a pastor’s wife. Amen. And I made that very clear to God. Anyway he came home. He’d been listening to all these cassettes and he said honey I’m going to make you the happiest person in the world. And in my head I know that I look holy but truly, if you just knew what goes on in here and I in my head, I thought, yeah, pigs fly. That’s what I thought to myself but you know, over the following months, that he served me in any capacity that he could. I because he got a revelation of the love commandment and he decided I was the guinea pig and he would try things out on me. You know, he’d come home from a long day at work and you know, he was a butcher in those. It’s hard to believe that you ever cut sheep up. Now, we now put them back together. Amen. It’s so weird. It’s you know, the vision of him with a butcher’s apron on and anyway, it just doesn’t match anymore but you know, he come home from work and he’s, yeah, with his grand statement, you know, I’m going to make you the happiest woman in the world but he’d come home from a long day. You know, I used to work long hours. He’d leave at six. He wouldn’t get home til six and I had the children young and you know, I felt like a deserted wife.
Here I am with three kids under three trying to stay sane. That was the major job just to keep my wits about me and I’d go like a train all day and get to the end of the day. I think what did I achieve you know. Not get into bed, not just quietly cry because that’s the only thing that kind of eased the pain of having three kids under three. And he would just pat me And he’d say, it’s okay darling. 1 day older. Praise God. Pastor Greg, you know and his encouragement but over the following months, it was amazing. You know, I kept thinking, is this going to last or is it going to wear off? So, I test it, you know, when I was an extra bit grumpy or tired or something and he’d still be really reasonable. I think, oh, gee, you know, after a few months but I can remember it. That time when he came home, and yeah, he was really serious about wanting to go into ministry and I was really serious about not going into ministry. It took the lord seven years for me to finally say yes. He came home from work and he said, I wrote in my devotional book. I put all these conditions of what I wanted the lord to do before I went into ministry and said, honey, God’s met everyone. He said, I have to do it. So, we said yes to Bible College in 1990. Cause in the churches that we’d been part of. Lots of ways on how not to do church. It’s like if you’ve got bad parenting praise God because you’re not learning how to do it. Amen. If you’ve got a mad bad mum and dad and you think gee they’re just terrible parents. Just praise God anyway because you’re learning how not to parent. You know, use it as a positive to motivate you to go forward every single time. So I want to talk to you today. About the benefits of serving in his house. There’s three things I want to share with you today. And the first is your life will be blessed. You know I can remember going to Fiji and in the early nineties, Greg was invited to go over there and teach MTI which is a ministry training institute and Greg said, I’ll go on one condition. My wife can come with me and I thought, oh, cool. I’ll get a fish, you know, trip to Fiji. Anyway, when we got there, we went to share in this church at Navua and there was this beautiful lady in the children’s church.
They had two containers that they put together and then put a covering over the top. And the 30 or 40 children were meeting with the Children’s Church in the centre. And she was the head of the children’s church. And I can remember thinking boy she’s such a beautiful sweet person that’s you know looking after these children. And it’s so hot over there as well. And I’m thinking she’s a legend out there with all those kids you know. I found out later that she was actually the owner of one of the biggest resorts in Fiji. Five and 6 days a week but on Sunday setting aside a few hours and I can remember thinking to myself that is just incredible that a person of her position and you know what she does through the week and the workload that she’s obviously got that she’s got such a passion that she would be in there you know raising up tomorrow’s leaders in the church and I was just so blessed by that you know Simon Peter in Luke 5, was asked, when you read it in the, again, in the Passion Translation, it says, Jesus had pulled a crowd. There was a great crowd that had come together, all wanted to listen to him and he spotted two guys that owned boats. Anyway, he actually says to Simon Peter, let me use your boat. Now, my mind gets carried away when I read things like that and I think, what would you do if Jesus asked you, could he use your boat? Or could he use your house or could he use your car to pick somebody up? Or could he use you to cook the barbecue on a Sunday? Or could he use you to, you know, serve in the Children’s Church. If Peter had said no, would they have had the miracle? Because Peter said, yes, use my boat. They took the boat out. Jesus preached what he was going to preach.
Then he said to Simon Peter, I want you to throw, go out into the deep now, and throw your nets. And I think, would that miracle have taken place if he said, that’s my boat, you’re not using my boat. But he didn’t say that. He understood that everything we have comes from the father of lights. Every good and perfect gift. When I first became a Christian, I was useless for anything in the kingdom. I was a broken person, suffering personal depression. I wasn’t convinced that my husband loved me because he was never there. I had a lot of baggage from it coming out of a dysfunctional home, first generational Christian. But now down the track 40 years. Oh I tell you. God is good. And if you give him all the broken pieces of your life it is amazing what he can put together. And amazing what he could do that you couldn’t believe he could even do. Wasn’t that I didn’t want to say yes to God? I just thought he had the wrong person. Gee Greg you’ve hooked up with the wrong wife. You know you need somebody quiet. Gentle. The smile’s nice. You know, baking cakes for old ladies in the hospital. It is amazing what God can do when you say yes. Have a look with me at Zechariah in Luke 1:8. I love this scripture. This is a real Bible I’ve got here. Just saying I love real Bibles. It says so while he was serving as a priest. I love that scripture. Before God in the order of his division. According to the custom of priesthood his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside. Then because he was serving. His name was on the roster and he was due to be in there.
It says an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing on the right side of the altar. That’s when he got the revelation that he was going to have a son. And I think revelation comes to us when we say yes we’ll be blessed. If we say no we won’t grow. He was on the roster. He was serving. And it came to him. You know in Psalm eighty-four four. And I love that whole Psalm. It talks about how blessed it is to be in the house of the Lord. And it says how lovely is your tabernacle oh Lord of hosts. I love this scripture. We do have that overhead somewhere. No? Blessed are those who dwell in your house. They will still be praising you. Oh I’m looking up there. It’s there. There you go. Look in the right place. You’ll find what you’re looking for. So when we serve God and we’re in the house we’re blessed and God is looking for men and women that will lay aside their self interest and pick up the interests of the kingdom. Because at the end of our years when we’ve served the Lord and we’ve said yes to be on rosters and we’ve helped in whatever we’re doing. There’s such a sense of satisfaction that comes from doing that. It says blessed are those who dwell in your house from verse four. They will still be praising you. In the Passion translation it says what pleasure fills those who live every day in your temple. There is joy and a sense of satisfaction that comes when we serve in the house. It says blessed is the man whose strength is in you. Whose heart is set on a pilgrimage. Like we have to set our heart that you know set my heart because I want to build a highway through to the new Jerusalem. I don’t want to do it in a back alley or some sideway to get there. I don’t need a detour. You know make straight a path that Jesus can walk on. And we can establish that in our lives through the word and through the works that we do. The Bible’s very clear that faith without works is dead. It’s useless.
You know you ever met a person that knows everything there is about the Bible. They’ve studied and studied and studied and applied none of it to their life. Let alone help anybody else with theirs. You know we need people that will not only be educated and keep reading the word and keep progressing in God and keep feeding our spirit. But we need men and women that will say yes to putting their hand to the plough and help him build this beautiful thing called the church. We’re so privileged. We’ve got such a brilliant facility here. All the hard work’s been done by those that have gone before us. They’ve pioneered. They’ve sacrificed and sacrificed and sacrificed. So you and I can sit in an air conditioned building and have a brilliant coffee shop and have the best youth leader Noah and Brook. They’re just an amazing young couple. You know that we’ve got Pastor Jess. And Shaun has come down and moved their entire house and family to be campus pastors. I think that’s just incredible. You know I just think you guys are legends. We are so blessed in every area. I look at the you know our new children’s church. Pastors. I keep calling him Sean Shane and Mel. And I think those guys are incredible. Like we’ve got leaders that are worth backing. That’s what I’m saying. You know Ash and husband Nathan. You know, they’re worth backing. They’re worth saying, yes, I’m going to help hold up your hands. You know, just like when Moses was looking and thinking, oh my gosh, this job is so big. How am I ever going to do it on my own? And Aaron, come. Man, we need Aaron’s in the spirit to support every area in the church. You know, and say yes to something and help us build this thing called church because at the end of the day, it’s all going to last forever. Amen. We can have lots of money in our bank account and I like that too. I love having money in my bank account. I love shopping. Just say, I love shoes, you know. But there is nothing like building the kingdom that brings great, you know, deep satisfaction. And there’s a scripture here. This is one of my favourite scriptures.
This is a great tithing message. This isn’t tithing but just saying, says, this is in one Chronicles chapter twenty-nine and this is King David speaking. He says, over because I have set my affection on the house of my God. I said I have given to the house of my God over and above all that I’ve prepared for the holy has my own special treasure of gold and silver. Now how much did he give? 17 million. Now what would possess a person regardless of how much money they’ve got to sow such a large amount of money into building a for God. He got hold of a key. He knew God. He knew his failures. You know you don’t, you don’t walk with God and learn everything overnight. He was in the school of the spirit for many years. He set his affection on the house of God. Then, not only that, he raised up a company of people under him. How many people with your influence could you convince to start serving in church to help all these brilliant leaders that we’ve got. Share the load and make it easier for everybody.
This guy was incredible because he set his affections on the house. He said his leaders, then the leaders the fathers had as leaders of the tribes, captains of thousands, captains of hundreds, gave three thousand 8 hundred and 40 billion dollars. That is passion. That’s passion for the house. You know some of you that are here this morning, your business people. You’re called by God to create wealth. To finance the vision for the church. And the vision right now is that we’re going to reach our community. We’re going over the wall. You know, a lot, you know, a lot of times, what stops churches outreaching is finance. They don’t have the money to be able to do it. That’s why the Reach Offering is so important. I think Pastor Ben and Trish have set the vision for us that you know, Joseph is a fruitful vine. That’s what they said of Joseph. Joseph didn’t have it easy. His life was incredible. What he had to go through. To finish up in the position that he was in.
You know it never comes easy but it starts with you saying yes to the process of God and serving in the house and getting serious about it. And even if you’re a businessman wherever you are you’re raising money for the kingdom. So you can have enough for you and enough to share for everybody else that we can actually finance this end time church. Amen. So David did that. And he did it really well. So that’s point one. Your life will be the best. Blessed. Amen. Point to you will flourish. A promise is that. And if you haven’t signed up for Flourish yet this is a plug for flourish. Amen. We need to flourish. Let’s read this. This is the amplified version which I love. It says the righteous will flourish like the date palm. Long lived, upright and useful. It’s much better being useful than useless. Amen. They will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Majestic and stable. How we need pillars in the house that are going to stand strong and be stable even when we go through storms. Amen. Planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish. Now just to clarify that word flourish means to increase in wealth and honour. To be at the peak of development. To triumph. To blossom. To thrive. To grow luxuriantly. To increase. To enlarge. To be in a thriving state of success and prosperity. To move. To wave in the air by way of show or triumph. Now I want to flourish. Amen. And I am flourishing. In the courts of God. Growing in grace. They will still thrive and bear fruit and prosper in old age. They will flourish and be vital and fresh. Rich in trust and love and contentment. They are living memorials to declare that the Lord is upright and faithful to his promise. He is my rock and there is no one more righteous in him. I just think that’s an amazing promise. You know, we don’t want to be scaffolding. We want to be part of the main building and I want to encourage you to say yes. Don’t be a pot plant Christian. Pot plant Christians will go hear that on Sunday. We’ll go there next time. We’ll go somewhere else for a different week. Now, we need to be planted in the house just like my children were planted in my house. I don’t expect them to try every neighbour’s house down a whole street. Amen. I don’t expect that they wouldn’t have visitors or they wouldn’t go to visit somebody else. I’m not saying that. But what I am saying is we need to get our roots down deep into each other’s lives. Like if I didn’t rock up this morning because I was on the roster to preach. Someone else would have had to cover for me. But there’d be a lot of people wondering where I was. Would anybody notice if you were missing? You know when we’re playing the game.
I had a vision a couple of weeks ago of a game that failed and a person walking out in a plain T-shirt. The first thing the coach asked was which team are you on? Like if you haven’t got a jumper on no one knows who you’re playing for. That’s why it’s so important that we identify ourselves with the church and say, this is my church and I’m putting my roots down deep. I’m looking up there and it says naught. Does that mean I’ve gotta stop? No It says 1127. I’ve got one more point. Okay. One more point. Yay. So, don’t be a Popland Christian. And there’s two keys in that scripture. One is that you’re righteous. Get your stuff sorted out. You know, be in the right relationship with each other and the right relationship with God. And be planted. My third point: you will be satisfied. I remember this woman in Fiji. I’d been over there and I’d done a couple of the women’s conferences and then they asked me to come and do the third one. It was 1995, maybe. And I said oh on one condition that you two girls that I’d taught in the MTI because I finished up two and a half of the classes along with Pastor Greg. I said oh come on one condition that you two women do some of the sessions. I’m not doing the whole conference. I said, come on. It’s about time you two stepped up. Now, I know my middle name is Grace but I’m really convinced. It’s undercover. It should be push.
So, I’m giving you all a little bit of a push this morning but I can remember, even Sarah promised me, we’ll come next year at the National Conference and we promise you we’ll do some sessions. So I gets to Fiji. Sarah was there but no Eve. And I asked a few people where’s Eve? You know she’s on the thing. She’s on the roster here. She’s supposed to be one of the guest speakers. Where is she? And they said, oh, she’s home sick. I said, sick, sick. Nah, she’s not sick. I knew straight away. So, I got on the phone. I said, Eve, you promised me that you would make it all you don’t understand. I’m so nervous. You know, I don’t really know how to speak. I I don’t know what I’m going to say. I said, listen, you get in the car and get your butt here. I said, if you don’t, I’m coming to get you. And I will bring you and she said, oh, I don’t think I can. And I said, you better come or I will literally come and get you. I said, I don’t care if you preach on Mickey Mouse. I want you up there. And you know, she preached the most amazing message and she preached it to the acrostic love slave. I’ll never forget it. There were 800 women in this conference and she had half of them crying, some were on the floor. I mean, there was breakthrough after breakthrough because she spoke on what it meant to be a love slave of Christ. So, you never know what’s on the other side of your step of obedience. I can remember sitting in a pathology lab waiting for a blood test. I was 20 I think I was. We tried for three years to have a baby. It hadn’t happened. So I was going for a blood test because I thought I may be pregnant. There was a lady next to me. She had this baby jumping up and down on her knee and I thought oh isn’t he cute? You know I can’t wait till I’ve got one. And she said oh it’s not mine. And I said oh she’d know I’m a foster mum. And straight away. Do you know sometimes God drops something into your spirit? You actually think it’s your idea. Well I’m real because right there, the lord spoke to me and he said, if you can love one, I can give you many. Now, I didn’t know that I was going to finish up being a pastor’s wife. I was only young, young in the lord and learning my way but I can clearly remember the Holy Spirit saying to me, if you can love one, I can give you many. You know, there is a sense of satisfaction. In Psalm sixty-five four, it says, we will be satisfied with the goodness of your house. And I can honestly say, you know, I’m getting to the latter end of my life and milking it for all it’s worth. But I can honestly say, if for whatever reason the Lord chose to take me I am fully satisfied with the decisions that I’ve made. I kept saying yes even as inadequate as I used to be. And I had so much data about me. But I never had any doubt about God and what he could do. If I yield this vessel to him and his service.
So, I want to encourage you this morning. We’ve got people up the back waiting for you to say yes to a roster if you’re not doing anything. and yeah, we’re going to put a list up on the screen of things that you could say yes to. Because together, we can make a massive difference. You know, let me just finish on this one story. And I promise I’ll stop. I’m trying to land, okay? An old man asks a young man he was training, do you recognise this picture? And he showed him a picture. He said, you know, Jack, when it was being built, Sir Christopher Ren, the architect, who is an English architect, very famous, was walking around the site one day and came upon a young apprentice carrying a brick. Ren asked the boy what he was doing. Oh, I’m just carrying bricks. Sir, he said, and Ren said to him, no, your building, Saint Paul’s Cathedral. We have to understand every little thing we do regardless of how insignificant you think it is, we’re building his church and one day, we’ll stand before him and I’m hoping he says to me, well done, thy good and faithful servant. You know, with a little bit that God gave me, with faith breathed on it and I just kept saying yes to Jesus. It’s amazing. The influence and the capacity that you can actually carry if you let God do it. Amen? Amen. Can we end this morning and I’m just going to pray. Father, we thank you for the great honour and privilege it is to serve in your house regardless of the tasks that we do. We’re building this beautiful, magnificent thing called the church and we thank you for the privilege. I pray to the Holy Spirit that you can help all of us to continue to say yes, to stay faith filled and keep serving and to not lose heart, lord, to keep doing good while we’ve got the opportunity and everybody he said, amen. Thank you. Awesome.
