We’re going to come around the word of God. Who loves the word of God? We have got such a special guest joining us. He’s a friend of King’s Christian College. He’s a friend of King’s Church. Pastor Dan Buckle is a kids pastor. He runs Linked Ministries but he’s also a mentor to pastors across our state and across our nation. And he loves kids. He loves family. And we’ve brought him here because we thought it would be fantastic to him to share our first Beyond Chapel. So why don’t we give a big King’s Church, Kings Christian College welcome to Pastor Dan because all the kids who know me know that if I go there right now, I will end up on my face. I have the hand-eye coordination of a brick and and then when I fall, I look like a brick and so I’m going to stand here for a sec but church grab a seat, make yourself comfortable. It is so epic to be here with you today but before we get started, I need this a few things I need to do right off the bat. Firstly, I need to give you a fair warning. I need to warn you.
All the kids who’ve seen me know this already. Expect the unexpected. If you could imagine your craziest friend who does the weirdest things that you always facepalm when they’re with you, that’s me. And so hopefully today, obviously, we want to learn about God but hopefully today, I can take you on a little bit of a journey into my mind and the craziness that is Buckle but before we do that, I do want to double check. Out of all the kids here, firstly, who has seen me preach before? Give me a massive shout. Give me a wave. Where are my kids at? Come on. Where are you? Good job. I know kids are like, I’ve gotta be quiet. I’m sitting with mom and dad. Pretend mom and dad aren’t here for 2 seconds. If we were at chapel, where are my kids at? We’ll get there. We’ll get there.
Where are all my kids at? That’s better. That’s more like it. Alright, you set the standards. See, now, everyone else has to have the same energy as you. Otherwise, they’re like old and boring and no one wants to be old and boring. Is that right, parents? You, you know, let me show you. Where are all my parents at? There we go. Okay, there’s another generation above our parents. Where are all my grandparents at? There we go. And I saved the craziest until last. Where are our youth at? There we go. Alright, here’s my cheer squad for today. Fantastic. Now, like I said, my name is Buckle. Everyone’s like, hold on a second, did they introduce him as Buckle? That sounds weird. That’s what I used to buckle my seat belt when I drive. Yes, it’s my last name but it’s what everybody knows me as. So, if you see me anywhere and you hear me introduce me as Buckle, that’s actually what I go by. So, feel free to use that whenever you see me but today, we’re going on a little journey. So, here’s what you have to realise. Like I said, I have the hand-eye coordination of a brick and I make decisions based on that fact and so, we’re going to go back in time. Who wants to go back in time?
We’re going to jump into our time machine back to the nineties. Yes, come on. See, I’m a baby of the eighties. I’m a kid of the 90s and here’s what you gotta know about me. I was born in church. My parents have pastored so I know all the right things to do but I have a little bit of a rebellious streak. I like to try things. If someone tells me that’s not possible, my response is challenge accepted. That’s just who I am. That’s the way my brain works. And so when I was younger, Little Buckle, I’m the eldest of three. So, I’ve got two younger sisters, Michelle and Julie and we got along most of the time but who here has got siblings? You got like a younger brother or even older brother or sister? You know that there are times when it happens between you and your siblings is legit and so I got given a gift. One Christmas, I think it was Christmas on my birthday and all our young kids, I’ve got a picture to show you what this was but who here is old enough to know what slot cars are? Well, my slot cars are. So, I’ve actually got a picture of the Thunder Loop Thriller. This was the gift I got. Now, the way this worked, if you have no idea what I’m talking about was, it was a series of black tracks made from plastic and you’ll see there’s the silver connectors when you plug them into power would run electricity along them and you have these little cars that had a motor built into it and so you put it on the track and when you pull the trigger, the electricity would flow through the track and the car would take off and if you went full speed, it wouldn’t stay on the track. Like, these things went fast. Like, they went as fast as the right-hand lane on the M1. That’s how fast these things went. Crazy and so, you’re meant to build it like the picture. It’s meant to be a track.
Well, I had this ingenious idea because back when I was younger, we used to watch videos of people riding motorcycles and jumping over trucks and buses. And so I thought, I wonder if I can make this car jump. And so one day we’re at home and my dad comes to me. He’s like we’re going out. I’ve gotta go out. Staying home with mum. Mum’s getting ready because we’ve got friends coming over for dinner. Don’t make a mess. It’s the one rule right? You can do whatever you want. Have fun playing. Do all those things. School holidays. Whatever. Don’t make a mess. Right? That’s what my dad said. So all I heard was play with my new toy, make a mess. So, I go into the lounge room instead of playing in my bedroom. I go out to the lounge room because I needed space. Our lounge room that we lived in was up in a place called Bundaberg and the lounge room was narrow but it was long and so here’s what I did. I got my slot cars and I built a track that just used all of the straight and bendy pieces and ran all the way and used as many as I could and then, you’ll notice, it’s meant to go up onto the wall. So, there’s actually a piece that goes 90° up.
So, for the start of the track up on the top of the couch, I ran it down to the floor, 90 degrees and shot it up because I was hoping that it would shoot up and jump over and I lined up all my cars. Now, while I’m sitting this up, my two younger sisters are like, this looks fun. Now, they had the same rules. Don’t make a mess. Did we obey? No, we’re terrible and you know, I apologise to my dad. He doesn’t, he knows the ending of this story. Now, if he knew then, I would have not been here today. My sisters bring out all their toys. They’re bringing adult houses and their dolls and all of their bits and pieces and so I’m progressively lining up my sister’s toys to see how far I can make this car jump. And so the room is trashed. There are toys everywhere. I’ve got all my Legos out. I’ve built a Lego City around this track. I was building up to the moment. We had skyscrapers and we had everything all around this track. It was next level. It was massive. And the time came. To try the track. Now, like I said, I have the hand-eye coordination of a brick and so, I was not able to judge the speed of the car based on the trajectory from the jump and so, I put the car at the beginning of the track and my sisters are sitting there.
Remember, my dad’s out. He’s coming back soon. Don’t make a mess. That was the rule. I put the car on the track. I just gave a little bit of a rev. I’m holding the car. And I lifted up the back wheels which is what the motor turned and I pulled the trigger full. And then I let go. The car shot down this ramp so fast that instead of jumping over the cars and doors that we had in front it went straight into the roof. I put a three centimetre wide hole which wasn’t super. It was narrow but a decent enough hole in the roof. My sisters look at me and all of a sudden they’re gone. I’m like where did you go? And they hit their doors to their bedrooms. They’re gone. They’re hidden. They’re out of there. And I’m sitting there. I’m like what am I going to do? When dad comes home next second, I hear Dad’s home. What am I going to do? And I can hear him looking for his keys in his wallet and I’m panicking and I’m like, what? Am I going to do? So, I jump up on the couch. I rip this thing out of the roof. I throw it under the couch as quickly as I can but there’s still a hole in the roof. How am I going to hide this? And I’m like, what’s white? What’s white? What’s white paper? No, it’s not going to fit. What am I? Toothpaste. So, bolted into our bathroom. I got the Colgate. I ran back up while I heard my dad coming and I proceeded to smear toothpaste, half a tube into our roof and I blocked the hole. It was great. If you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t know. I don’t have time to get the toothpaste back and so I throw it under the couch just like before and I hit her. Dad’s home. Looking into the lounge room. Now, if you’ve ever had a dad that’s so angry that nothing happens, you know it’s over. He was so mad that he just looked at me for about 10 seconds. There’s this vein in the top of his head just. And I’m like, it’s over. Jesus, I’m coming home.
He just looks at me, points at the room, and says, five minutes and he walks away. I am in trouble. And so I’m like, I start trying to clean this room and put the mess away and he turns around and he goes, do I smell mint? And I’m like, I was brushing my teeth. He fell for it. Don’t like it. Lying to your parents is bad. And so Dad goes into his bedroom and I’m like, what am I going to do? I gotta clean this room and so I realised that most of these toys aren’t mine. The only things that are here are my Legos and my slot cars. So, I went down to my sisters’ rooms. I walk down to their rooms and I’m like Michelle, Julie, help me clean. We’re in trouble. And I hear back the response that every sibling has heard in your entire life when you ask for help. No. Please, I need help. We’re in trouble. No and I’m defeated. I don’t know what to do. I’m begging with them. I’m pleading with them. Please come and help. This is our mess. Not my mess. It’s our mess. They’re our toys. It’s always been my toys previously to this point but now they’re our toys and so, I walked to my dad and I’m sad. I’m dejected. I don’t know what to do. Go to my dad and I’m like, What? The toys aren’t just mine. They’re Michelle and Julie’s too.
They won’t help me clean. And he pauses and he goes, did you tell them I said so? All of a sudden I had the words of power, see I wasn’t now acting on my authority. I was acting on my dad’s authority. See, Buckle didn’t say so. My dad said so. So, in the background, there’s music starting to play in my head. I’ve got the power. Yeah, come on. So, I walked to my sister’s room, one knock. Help me clean. No. Dad said so. Fine. Yes. You see, in this moment, I was faced with a challenge, something that I couldn’t overcome on my own. It was too big for me but all of a sudden, I’m no longer facing this challenge on my own authority. All of a sudden, I’m stepping into a place of faith where I’m acting on somebody else’s authority, someone that has authority and when I speak his name into my situation, everything changes. You see, all of us have different situations that we face as kids in this room. Maybe this was your first time here at Kings.
Maybe you’ve moved from a new school. Maybe you’ve come from a different state and you’re walking into your classroom for the first time and you know nobody and you’re feeling awkward and you’re feeling scared and you don’t know what to do. You’re facing a storm, a situation where it’s like, I don’t know what to do. How do I make friends in this new place? Maybe you’re in high school, maybe you’re in grade 7 and you’ve just left primary school and you were like grade six, you were it. You walk into this school and kids are bowing at you because you are in grade six. You are the old kid. You are dusting off your shoulder and now all of a sudden, you’re the little kid again and you don’t know what to do. Maybe you’re a young adult in this room and you’re looking for your life, you’re looking for that person that you want to do life with and maybe you’ve had broken relationships in your past that hasn’t worked. Maybe you’re facing financial situations. Maybe you’re in this room and you’re dealing with the housing crisis that’s coming across the Gold Coast right now. You’re facing a situation that you are not able to overcome. It’s bigger than you. Maybe it’s financial. Maybe it’s relational. Doesn’t matter how young you are in this room with our kids or how old you are as a grandparent. We all have storms in our life that come against us. That too big for us to face alone.
And so I want to show you a story in the Bible of Jesus and his disciples. How Jesus knew that he was walking in the authority of the Father whereas the disciples still had not had this revelation yet. And so why don’t we turn our eyes to the screen and this is our animated Bible story that our kids see every week here at Kings as a part of our Christian Living program. And I wanted to show it to the parents as well. Just so you can see a little glimpse of what it is that we teach your kids every week. So let’s look at the screen for today’s animated Bible story. Say hello to Jesus, the son of God, the saviour of the world. And while Jesus was here on earth, he would travel around telling people about how much God loved them and healing their sick. One time, Jesus even did a miracle where he fed over 5000 people using only five loaves of bread and two fish. But by now, it was getting late in the day. So Jesus told his disciples to hop in the boat and travel ahead of him to the other side while he stayed behind and sent the people home. After one had left, Jesus climbed up a nearby mountain by himself to pray.
But later that night, while Jesus was alone on the mountain, the boat had already travelled away from the land and was fighting against the wind and the waves. It was getting crazy. A little bit before dawn, the next morning, Jesus decided to go out and meet them, walking on the water. When the disciples saw him, they were terrified. It’s a ghost they yelled in fear but Jesus immediately called back. Take courage. Don’t be afraid. It’s me. Peter replied, Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come out to you on the water. So, Jesus replied, come on out. Peter, walk to the edge of the boat, put his hands on the edge. Put one foot over and as his foot touched the water, he started walking on the water as well. He started walking out towards Jesus but when he was a little bit away from the boat, he got distracted and he saw the wind and he saw the waves and he got afraid and he began to sink. Lord, save me. He cried out. Immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and grabbed him. You have little faith, he said. Why did you doubt? When they climbed into the boat, the wind died down, then everyone that was in the boat worshipped him, saying, truly, you are the son of God. You see, in this moment in the storm, Jesus doesn’t call out to the disciples. Hey, it’s me. Hold on a second. Storm, stop, and then stop the storm. The wind is still there. The waves are still there. The fear is still there and then Jesus says, come on out. Come into the storm with me. And the Bible says that as Peter gets out of the boat, he’s got his eyes on Jesus. He’s looking at Jesus and he’s walking on the water.
The storm is no longer affecting him because he’s not walking on his own authority anymore. Now, he’s walking on the authority that Jesus has given him but when he takes his eyes off Jesus and he becomes distracted by the storm. He becomes distracted by what’s happening around him. The challenge in front of him. That’s when he begins to sink. You see, I love in the Bible in 2 Corinthians 12. It says this, this is Jesus speaking, God speaking to one of his disciples in prayer and he’s like, the one of the disciples saying, God, I’m facing this challenge. Take it away from me. I’m facing this challenge. Take it away from me and Jesus says, no, no. My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in your weakness. You see, God’s not here to take your challenge away. We all have challenges. We all have to take a step of faith for our students to make a friend and go and introduce yourself. God’s not here to make life easy. He’s here to make sure that you don’t face the storm alone. You see it also says in Isaiah 41. This is God speaking through to Isaiah. He’s saying fear not. I am with you. Don’t be afraid. I am God. I will strengthen you. I will hold you. I will uphold you with my hand. You see when we face the challenges of life, it’s not there for us to be able to say, Jesus, I can’t deal with this anymore, take it away. With that to say, Jesus in my weakness, I am not enough. I have not got what it takes to overcome this situation on my own. Whether it’s financial or relational. Whatever it is, the challenges that you’re facing. Jesus isn’t here to take it away. He comes to give you the strength and the authority to walk through it. You see, it wasn’t until after when Jesus was back in the boat, he said, why did you doubt? Why were you afraid? And the Bible says, that’s when the disciples realised, hold on a second, this is truly the son of God. His authority is higher than any other authority. You see, if you lean on God’s strength and God’s wisdom and God’s love in your life, through your challenges, he doesn’t promise to make it easy but he promises to get you through. It means that we have to take a step of faith. We have to take that first step saying, the storm’s around me. I’m in a boat. If I step over the edge, I’m meant to sink to the bottom but instead of relying on what physics or science says, I’m looking at Jesus.
And I’m trusting that you’re going to get me through because this does not make sense and we keep our eyes on Jesus as we step. We keep our eyes on Jesus as we step. We keep our eyes on Jesus as we step. And he promises to get you through. And so as we come to a close this morning. Maybe you’re here today for the very first time. You’ve never even been in a church before. Maybe you were going to church when you were younger with your parents and your kids have dragged you along today to come and hang out with us for the ice in the slides. Maybe you’re hearing you didn’t even know that God loves you. You didn’t know that he has a plan for your future, a plan for you to get through your challenges with his authority. You see, we believe that the Bible says that we all make stakes, we all mess up, we all try to face our challenges our own way like I tried to overcome my challenge with my sisters and my own authority. We all do that. The Bible also says that if you’ll turn to Jesus and say, I’m sorry for trying to live my life my own way. Instead, I want to live in your authority and your way. Forgive me of my mistakes. I want to say yes to Jesus. The Bible says that he is faithful and he is just and he forgives you of every mistake you’ve ever made and every mistake you will ever make and he brings you back into relationship with him. Here’s the thing, the price for you to be friends with god again has already been paid. When Jesus died on the cross over 2000 years ago, the price for your mistakes was paid.
If I took you to McDonald’s or you take your kids to McDonald’s and you walk up to the counter and you say, I want to buy my kid a happy meal and you pay. The food is not there yet but they give you a docket and it might say, receipt one eight four. Give that to your kid and say, this receipt, this is for you. You stand here when they call one eight four, give them the receipt, that’s for you. The kid stands there waiting for his happy meal. Person behind the counter comes up and says, order one eight four. The kid can walk up confidently and boldly and say, that’s me. I want my happy meal. They don’t have to pay for it again. The price has been paid but they do have to make the decision to take a step of faith And receive the gift. And so today, I want to give an opportunity for you to make that decision to receive this gift of salvation that Jesus has paid for you. Where we say, Jesus, I’m sorry for my mistakes. I’m sorry for living life my own way. I want to be a follower of Jesus. I want you to be my lord which means we live his way. I want you to be my saviour because the Bible says that if you believe in your heart that Jesus died on the cross and rose again and you say with your mouth, Jesus, you are my lord. The Bible says, you’re saved and Jesus be my friend because he wants to walk through the challenge with you. If that’s you today, I want you to have the opportunity to say yes to Jesus. So, right across this place, can everyone close your eyes, bow your heads just for a moment. This is between you and God. If you’re here today, whether you’re a kid, whether a youth, young adult, parent, grandparent, I don’t know where you’re at but you’re like, you know what, I want to make that decision today to say yes to Jesus. Maybe for the first time or maybe you’re coming back to god again. Just so I know who I’m praying for but no one else is looking around. Would you put your hand up super high so I know who I’m praying with in just a minute.
Put your hand up now. Be brave. So many of us in this room have done this already. For. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hold them up for a few more seconds. Hold it up. Also, put your hands down. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to pray together. I’m going to say one line of this prayer and I want you to repeat it after me but we’re all going to say it as a family, the whole church because we don’t want these people to have to do this alone, yeah? We’re a family. But remember this, it’s not the prayer that saves you. This is just a moment in your life to just lay down the line to say, from this point forward, I’m following Jesus. So, everyone repeat this after me. Say, thank you, Jesus. Come on, everybody. Thank you, Jesus. That you love me so much that you gave your life to rescue me. I say yes to Jesus, Jesus be my Lord. Be my saviour and be my friend. I’m sorry for my mistakes. And I choose to live my life your way. In Jesus name, we all said, amen. Amen. Can we give these people a huge round of applause? Thank you so much for making that decision and Now, like we said, we don’t want you to have to do this journey alone and so if you’d like the church to partner with you on this journey, you’ll be able to find one of these orange cards and on the back, it’ll say, today, I decided to follow Jesus. Tick that if you’re comfortable to put your details on it.
Hand it in at the hello desk at the back and someone from the church will get in touch with you so that you don’t have to do this journey alone. Now, I want to pray for one more group of people really quickly before we throw to some other some of our awesome kings community taking their next step of faith and water baptism but maybe you’re today and you’re like, yes, I love Jesus. I’ve been following but I know what I’m facing, I’ve been trying to do it my own way. I haven’t put my faith in Jesus, entrusting his authority. I’m sinking in the water. I’m not walking on the water. You don’t have to put your hand up for this. I’m going to say a global prayer and if you’re a part of this, I just want you to receive it in your heart. God, I thank you so much that you love us, you care for us, you don’t abandon us but you want to equip us and empower us to face the challenges of life, to face the storm so that we know that although it may not be easy, we know we’ll get through because of you. Help us to have the confidence and the courage to put our trust in you. To not walk in our own strength but instead to come to you every day to ask for your help, to ask for your wisdom, to no longer trust in our own wisdom but instead to trust. In you. Help us to get through the storms so that we have an amazing story to share with our kids and our grandkids in the future. In Jesus name, we all sit together. amen. Thank you so much church. Let’s give it up for Pastor Dan Buckle. Maybe don’t set up a slot car kit. Don’t let him near your house. Don’t let him near your ceiling. Okay. Um we’re going to stand together right now. We are very excited as we’re kind of moving towards the end of the service. There’s one last thing we want to do is we have a number of people who are getting baptised today. We have them of all ages. There was a year seven camp at King’s Christian College this week. And a number of them put their hand up saying they would like to get baptised this morning. So we are very excited. I think we’ve got about like 10 or 11 people. Ten people that are getting baptised. It’s amazing. And we think this is something to celebrate so we are going to celebrate. But we want to give the opportunity.
If you’ve never been baptised before and you came in in your Sunday best and you thought I wasn’t going to get wet today but I really want to get baptised. We have some shirts for you to wear. All you have to do is make your way to the side of the stage of either Kerry or Ash. We’ll help you with that. While they are getting baptised, what we are going to do is we’re going to praise God. So when they come up from the water I want to hear cheers because this is an exciting step in their journey of faith. Because what it represents is as we go under the water, that’s our old life, our old ways of thinking, our old patterns, and as we come up, we’re a new creation, we’ve been made brand new in Jesus Christ. So, if you want to get baptised, please make your way to the side and we’ll let you join in. Otherwise, let’s praise god. Let’s have some fun and let’s cheer when the guys come up. Amen? Amen. I’ll hand it over to our team.
Thank you everyone.
