Descending Into Conflict - Dr Sven Ostring - 2410

Jesus said in Matthew 28, verse 19, go therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. You welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter,Dr Sven Ostring. I'd like to invite you to pray with me because we want to spend time with God and journey with God here this morning. So please bow your heads with me as we pray this morning. Father in heaven, we have come here to Waitara after a busy week, taking care of kids, going to work, commuting to work, studying, or preparing to study, starting school. But, Father, we just want to spend time in your presence. We want to thank you that no matter where we are, you are present through your holy spirit. But there's something special about gathering in your presence where we can sing your praises, we can share your testimonies of what you have been doing in our lives. And, Father, I just want to pray that today would just not be a day where we talk about just the secular things. But, Lord, may we talk about the miracles, the little miracles, the big miracles that you've done in our lives. But, Father, we want to focus on a great story, the story which Joden pointed us to. And, Father, I pray that you would melt our hearts. You would melt our hearts, and that we would be able to say, take my life. Take my life. And that we can journey with you on the mission that you have given to us. The mission that you started and the mission that you're inviting us to join is my prayer. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. I want to invite you to think of the place that you normally go if you like to read. Okay? Can you kind of picture that in your mind? So a place that. Okay, maybe it's Bible study. Yeah, we all like to study the Bible, or most of us who attend here in Waichara. And for those of you who have just started coming here, I want to tell you, if you spend time in Waichara, you will grow in your love of Bible study. But maybe it's Bible study. Maybe it's your Sabbath school lesson, or maybe you're studying your medical reference books or law books or whatever it is. But a place where you go where it's peaceful, you're away from the maddening crowd, as they would say, and that you are just enjoying some quiet time, reflecting. Can you picture yourself in that place? Yeah. And I want you to imagine that as you're sitting at that desk or maybe the armchair or the bar stool or wherever you are, suddenly there's a crash on the door and the door bursts open and there's these soldiers with their guns focused or aimed at you. Okay? So I want to ask you the question is this, what would you do? What would you do in that situation? Would you start screaming? Or would you sort of start to have a staring competition to one of the, come on, take a fight with me. Or you've got your desk. Would you suddenly dive under your desk and try and hide from these soldiers? What would you do? What would you do? Now, what if I would tell you that these were swedish soldiers? Swedish soldiers. Now, you might be saying, swedish soldiers. That sounds more like a group of Ikea employees. Can I help you? Hey, what kind of box would you like? You go like, swedish people just don't get into conflict. They're so nice and friendly. Well, let me tell you that once upon a time, the Vikings ruled the northern seas. We were the people that were feared all around northern Europe. We discovered North America going way back. Way back. It was amazing thing. So swedish soldiers can be scary. Swedish soldiers can be scary. And the fact is this, is that Europe has been dominated by war for many, many centuries. Prince William and his wife Kate once went to the Ukraine club somewhere in London, and they know war is foreign to us. Well, let me tell you, it's not. The fact is this. We've been at war for centuries. And how do I know? How do I know? It's because my grandfather was actually involved in a war. So my grandfather was born in Finland, as you can see the outline right there. And Finland was in conflict. Finland was in conflict during the World War I. They had the Russians come in and fight the Finnish. And my grandfather refused to fight. He refused to fight. He refused to take arms and fight the Russians and the finnish government. The finnish army was so upset because he ran Away, they chased him down to his house and he went to prison because he wouldn't fight. He wouldn't fight in the war. And the fact is this, even today, you might be know that situation of the room and their soldiers breaking know, that's totally fictitious. Well, it's not if you're living in Ukraine. It's not if you're living in some of the other war torn parts of this world. It's a reality. The fact that we live in Australia is the reason why we have the peace that we do. If we're over there, that might be the reality. And the question still remains, what would you do? Well, it actually did happen. This is not just a made up story. There was once a boy once a boy of about five years old, and he was sitting at his desk. He was sitting at his desk doing his Bible study. And the door. There was a loud crash on the door and the door burst open and there were swedish soldiers. And what did little Nicholas do? He had his Bible open. He looked up at the soldiers and he looked back down at his Bible and started to pray. He started to pray. And the swedish soldiers froze. They absolutely froze. And then they rushed out of that room. They ran downstairs through the kitchen. They rushed out and they said, we cannot ransack this castle because God is in this place. It's a place of prayer. We cannot destroy this castle. And you know, the interesting thing is this, is that for Nicholas, this was not an unusual situation. Nicholas was a very, very special little boy. In fact, what he'd do is he'd go to the top of his castle and he'd write a love letter to Jesus. Dear Jesus, I love you so much. It's amazing to be part of your world, and I love reading your word. And he'd make a paper plane and he'd throw it out at the window of the castle and it would float down as paper planes do, and it would catch in one of the hedges. Because, of course, this was a big estate. He was a boy in a rich family. And along come the gardener would be cutting the hedge and go like, oh, there's a piece of paper. Open up. Another love letter from little Nicholas. Another love letter from little Nicholas. Sharing his love for know. Little Nicholas grew up as a very spiritual, very loving boy who loved spending time with Jesus. Is that what you would like your children to be like? Is that what you would like to be known for as well in the records of history? But little boys are little boys. And as they grow up, you start to get interested in other things. You get interested in academic things. You get interested in going out with friends and all of those kind of things. And so what happened was this, is that Nicholas was sent to the University of Wittenberg by his parents because they wanted him to be a very noble person. They wanted him to study law, and they wanted him to become a noble person in their society. And that is what Nicholas did. And at university, there's so many things. There's social gatherings and parties and all of those kind of things. And of course, he didn't lose his interest in God, but he kind of got distracted along the way. One day, Nicholas went to a gallery. Now, if you go to Europe, I'm not sure if you've been to Europe, but if you go to Europe, there's three things that you always go to. There's cathedrals, there's museums, and there's galleries, and you sort of do them in turn kind of thing. So one day, Nicholas, with his friends, went to a Gallery to view the paintings. And they were going through all of the. Just looking at the different artwork. Now, I want to tell you that in my experience, there's three types of people who go to galleries. I don't know if you've experienced this, but there's one type of person who goes and says, there are 4000 pieces of work in this gallery and we have exactly 3 hours. So we have 20 seconds per picture, and then we need to move on. It's a type a person. We need to cover them all. We can't stop. So that's the first type. Then there's the second type of person. And they're the kind of social butterfly of art. They flit from here. Oh, that looks beautiful. Wow, that doesn't look good. That's amazing. It's kind of amazing to go. It's infuriating as well, because, come on, stick with something. Don't go over. All over the place. And then there's the art students, the history of art students, and what they do, they do is even more annoying. They go up to this art and they're sitting there. 20 minutes later, they're still stuck there. And you're going, like, come on, we need to go. And they go, no, I need to analyse the perspective, the depth, characterization, time period. Come on, we need to go. So which one was Nicholas? Well, I'd have to say, based on my understanding, Nicholas, he was a social butterfly kind of person, just flitting from artwork to artwork with his friends, kind of just enjoying the time and having sort of no specific focus on anyone. But there was one picture. There was one picture that as he came up and he stood there with his friends and suddenly, bang. And he was transfixed. He was transfixed. And it was the artwork of this where Jesus is being interrogated by Pilate. And Pilate asked him, what is truth? What is truth? That you're a king? And he just ignores Jesus. When Jesus starts to answer, or is perpetual answer, and he walks out and he brings Jesus out and he says, behold the man. Behold the man. It was that exact scene. And at that exact moment, the next moment in the gospels, you know what happens? What happens in the gospels is that, as Pilate says, behold the man. The entire crowd erupts and crucify him. Crucify him. You can read it in John. And, you know, the fact is this is that he was transfixed. He realised that if he'd been in that crowd, he would have been one of the people yelling, crucify that man. And the fact is this, friends, brothers and sisters, we might have journeyed with Jesus for many years, done our Bible study, but the reality is that when you read the gospels, you recognise, if you'd been in that crowd, you would have been shouting down as well. Isn't that humbling? We would have been shouting, crucify him as well. And, you know, right on this piece of artwork was. At the bottom of the artwork was a plaque which said this. The artist had put it. All this I have done for you. What have you done for me? All this I've done for you. What have you done for me? And suddenly all the memories, Nicholas thinking when he was a child, going through swedish soldiers, the love letters, and suddenly he was going like, I have loved you for so many years, but I've done nothing. I've done nothing for you, Jesus. And he resolved to himself, he said, from this moment onward, I am going to dedicate my life to following you. Isn't that amazing? Amazing. And I want to ask you that question. As you think of that moment, as you think of that moment, behold a man and crucify him. My question for you is this. What is your response to Jesus this morning? What is your response to him this morning? You may have loved him for many years, you may have not known him at all. But the question is today, what is your response going to be to him? What's interesting for Count Nicholas is he did dedicate his entire life to Jesus. But I guess one of the things is this is when you're a very rich person, you kind of struggle to know what to do. It's kind of easy when you're poor, you go and be a Bible worker or you do all of this. But when you're rich, you go like, what can I do? I've got all this stuff that I need to hold on to and protect and represent my family. Well, you know, it was interesting, in his estate at Bezeldorf, he lived in a mansion. He lived in a mansion which you can see here on the screen this morning. He lived in this mansion. He was praying, lord, what can I do for you? And the opportunity actually arose, actually arose for Nicholas. What happened was this. The story goes back a little bit because there was a man by the name of Jan Hutz, or otherwise, John Huss. Have you ever heard of John Huss? John Huss, one of the great reformers century before Martin Luther. He had proclaimed the Bible. He taught the Bible truth to the world. And there was a group of people who followed Jan Huss, John Huss, and they were called the Moravians. They said, we are going to base our beliefs on the Bible, we're going to pray, we're going to be followers of Jesus Christ. But the challenge was this, is that they had executed John Huss, they'd burnt him at the stake. And so this group of followers had been hounded, had been persecuted by the church at the time, the mediaeval church, the catholic church at the time, and they were about to be exterminated and they were on the run for their lives. And Nicholas heard about this and he, you know, I've got this estate, but of course I've got a huge amount of land as well. So what I will do is I will allow these religious refugees to come and stay on my land. Does that sound like a good thing? And I will allow you to come and stay on my land and I will allow you to build a village. And they called it Hearn hut. And these Moravians came and they spent time, they started a new life on the land. And Nicholas was incredibly generous. He built a school for them, he built a pharmacy, he built a printing press and all of these things in this village for these religious refugees. Now when you're onto a good thing, good news gets out, right? So what happened was this is not only Moravians heard about it, but Lutherans who are persecuted and Calvinists heard about it and Anabaptists heard about it and even some Catholics who were not so happy with the church at the time, they heard about it and they started to come and join this little village called Hearn Hut. And there was all of these different groups of Christians there in the village. Now the question is this, if you'd been persecuted by the government, by the church at this time and you had found refuge on this nobleman's estate, would you have been going like, wow, this is something to treasure, let's just enjoy what we have. Would you do that? Yeah, probably you would. But the reality is this, with all of these different religious groups, all of the religious groups in that village, that village started to head into conflict. Into conflict. The question was, who should pray? Which hymn book should we use? Who should be the leaders of this church? Which order should we use? Which type of communion should we use? That never happens in Waitara, does it? We never have any conflicts here. That only happens in places like this. So that's good to know. I just wanted to cheque. So the reality was the conflict grew and grew and it grew to such an intensity that the local authorities heard about it. The police and the council heard about this conflict and they came to Nicholas and they said, if you don't do something about this, we will come and deal with it ourselves. You need to deal with this conflict now. I just want to invite you to stop for a moment. You're a rich person. You've gone to the University of Wittenberg and studied law. You have this amazing mansion in this entire estate and you have, out of the goodness of your heart, you have given the opportunity for these religious refugees persecuted on the run for their lives. You've given them the opportunity to come and stay on your property. What would you do if you were Nicholas? What would you do? Well, I know what I think I would do. I think I would go to Kennard's and buy the biggest bulldozer and trundle it down and just go. Get out of here. Get out of know. I've given you a chance. I've given you a chance and you blew it. You got me into trouble now, so get lost. I'm going to start anew. I'm going to start anew. And the question is, is that what Nicholas did? Is that what Nicholas did? The amazing thing was this, is that Nicholas with his family, moved out of their mansion and they moved down into the village to deal, to resolve the conflict. And how did they do it? How did they do it? Did they get the lawyers? And we love our lawyers. Did they have a big sort of counsel? No. What Nicholas did is this. He went from home to home and he opened the Bible. He said, let's start reading the Bible. Let's pray. What's the issues that are concerning you? What are the relationships which are not working so well? And he went from place to place just sharing the word of God. I want to tell you, friends, brothers and sisters, the word of God is powerful. It's very powerful. More powerful than we even imagine. The power of the word to transform your lives. The power of the word to transform Waitara. The power of the word to transform our community as know. It's so amazing that they started these little groups called bands, these little groups of people who would study the Bible and pray together. Now, keep that in mind because I'm going to come back to that a little while later. But they started these groups and they started to these groups to encourage one another, to challenge one another, to say you could grow. There's an area in your life where you could grow and to pray for each other as well. And that herned hut village started to be completely transformed. And it was the 13 August 1727 that they were all there together in church, praying together, that they were having communion together. And suddenly the Holy Spirit was poured out in such an amazing way that they felt the fire of the Holy Spirit. It's called the moravian Pentecost in history. An amazing time. Brother would go to brother and say, I'm sorry for what I've done, forgive me. Then they would hug and they'd reconcile. An amazing time. You know, their lives were changed because the Holy Spirit was poured out. Friends, Waitara would be changed. When the Holy Spirit is poured out upon this church, I thank God for what the Holy Spirit is already doing, has done. But friends, when the Holy Spirit is poured out, this church will be empowered, transformed, enabled, changed. That is exactly what happened to her. And hut they enjoyed this time of prayer and Bible study so much that they decided to start a 24/7 prayer time together. They would put a roster of all the times that they could pray and they'd say, I'm going to dedicate my time. 02:00 a.m. To 03:00 a.m. I'm going to pray for Hearnhardt and for the Community. I'm going to pray for this time as well. So as a community, they started to pray continually. They prayed continually and they were always intrigued by this. How long do you think they could continue in their prayer time for 24/7 how long do you reckon that we could go for in 24/7 prayer? Right here at Waitara? Any guesses, any estimates? How long could we do it for? What do you reckon? Any bidders, any takers? For a year? Wow, that's commitment. Yeah. More than just one week? One year. Any other sort of estimates or commitments? What do you reckon we could do? Sorry? A month? Okay. That's really realistic. It's incredible. It's incredible that this Moravian Community, they started to pray 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they continued this for 100 years. 100 years. It was amazing, this commitment to prayer. And the other thing is this is not only has your community changed, our community changed. When we pray and study the Bible, there's another thing which happens and that is this. When you pray to Jesus and you're filled with his holy spirit, you get a passion for mission, you get a passion for sharing the good news about Jesus and it burns within your heart and you just cannot say no. You cannot change the fact that you've been changed by Jesus. It's an amazing experience and that is exactly what happened, this Community said we can't just hold this in, we need to share it with the world. And that is exactly what they did. Exactly what they did. Now the story continues because Nicholas being a nobleman, he would go to different places and he would mex in circles that probably we may never get the opportunity to. But one day he was in the king's court in Denmark. He was in the king's court in Denmark and enjoying the time with his scandinavian royal friends. And while he was there, while he was there he met a west indian slave called Anthony Ulrich. Now Anthony Ulrich was a person that had come to the court in Denmark and he had understood the Gospel from two Moravians and he learnt about the gospel and he was just so excited. And so of course when Count Nicholas was there and he was talking to said, you know, where are you from and how's your family? And Anthony Eurek said, my family's from the island of St. Thomas. And of course Nicholas was going like, well what's it like? What's it, tell me what it's like. He said, well it's an amazing place. It's halfway around the, you know, in the West Indies and the Caribbean and near Jamaica. And of course Nicholas is saying, well tell me, describe it for me. And Anthony was saying it is an incredible place. If you ever want to go for a holiday, if you want to experience the beautiful life of the West Indies, this is a place to be. This is a place to go on your honeymoon or with your family. And then Nicholas said, he asked him, how is your family? How is your family? And at that very point Anthony's face dropped and Nicholas said, well what's wrong? What's the matter? And Anthony said, well, my family's okay but I'm in deep sorrow. I'm in deep sorrow for my family because my brother and sister would love to hear about the gospel but they simply cannot. And Nicholas was going like, well what's the matter? You can share the gospel. And he said this, the reality is this is when you go to St. Thomas, the churches are for white people, they're for white people. And if any of the slaves try even to stand at the windows to listen to the gospel or stand at the door, the elders, the leaders of the church will go and grab them and punish them because it's a white man's religion. We do not want freedom for our african american slaves. And he said they're desperate to hear the gospel but they simply cannot. It was that point where suddenly Nicholas, his memories go back to the picture to his time with the swedish soldiers and his commitment at the moravian Pentecost. And he said, we need to do something about this. We need to share the gospel. So he went back to home hut and he said to his moravian community, he said, we are going to go for a mission to St Thomas island to share the gospel, because black slaves cannot hear the gospel in the West Indies in St Thomas. And so then he's looking around who will go? Who will put up their hands and say, yes, I will go without any support, without any contact, who will go to St Thomas? Now I was wondering for you, who would you choose? If you were part of Waitara Church and you wanted to send some missionaries to St Thomas, who would you choose? Well, imagine that you would. You know, we need to send our best, we need to send the person who's graduated from Avondale or maybe Andrews University. So we'll send Fabian to West Indies or we'll send somebody else who has a theological degree to go to these, you know, in the end the person people have put up their hands and Nicholas chose was a carpenter called Leonard Dober and a potter called David Nietzschement. And he took these two people and he said, you are going to be our missionaries from the moravian. A carpenter and a potter trains people to be the first missionaries for the moravian community. Think about that, think about that. And what he did is he spent all night in prayer. He prayed for in it, he prayed for David and then he took them in his coach and he took them all the way down to the ship, he knelt down beside them and prayed for them. And then he said to them, do everything in the spirit of Jesus. Gave them 30 shillings and sent them on their way. Didn't see them for a long, long period of time. They were by themselves on their own sharing the good news about Jesus. You know, it's interesting that a time later when christian missionaries went to St Thomas island, those two moravian missionaries had baptised 13,000 people, had planted and started many churches all through these islands, all in the name and the power of the Holy Spirit. The spirit of Jesus. Jesus can do amazing things through you, even if you're a tradesperson, a carpenter and a potter. And you know, this community, this community started a protestant missionary movement which inspired many of the great leaders down through know previously reformers were kind of all focused on how can we get the catholic church right. It was all very internal. Whereas Count Nicholas and his moravian community said, we have a gospel that needs to go to the world and we will share it and so their missionaries, they went to the West Indies, to St Thomas, they went to the American Indians in the states, they went to the Eskimos in the Arctic, they went down to South Africa and Persia and India, they went around the world, they sent more missionaries for that small church than any other group at that time. It was absolutely amazing. You know, the interesting thing is, as I said when I started, there is a connection for you. Being here in Waitara church, did you realise that there's a connection? And let me tell you the story. What happens is this, is that beyond Moravians, there was another person and his name was John Wesley. Have you ever heard of John Wesley? Yep. You heard of John Wesley. And John Wesley was a theologian, he was a minister who studied at Oxford University, and because he studied Oxford University, he knew all about theology, but he had a heart for doing missionary work to the American Indians in the states. So he got on a ship and was posted over there. The only thing was this, is that he wasn't a very good minister. He wasn't a very good minister. He fell in love with this american girl, young woman, and unfortunately she didn't respond to his love. I think she thought he was a bit too good for her or too religious or whatever, and she married somebody else. And from John Wesley's perspective, they weren't good enough to come to communion. So he actually said, no, you're not allowed to come to church when we do communion. Now, of course they got upset and, well, what did they do as Americans? They said, we're going to sue you, we're going to sue you because you don't allow us to come to communion. Typical american kind of way to do it, I guess. But the thing is this, is that he was sent back home as a failure. As he went back to England, he thought to himself, I wanted to be a missionary for the American Indians and now I'm going home to England as a failure, a person that's been sued by my own parishioners. And as he was going home, as he thought of himself as a failure, he suddenly remembered, hang on, I was on a ship, on the ship going over from England to America, and there was a group of people on that ship. Now what happened is in that ship, the ship was caught in this big storm, the mask broke and the ship was all at sea. And the Anglicans, the English, were so afraid for their lives, they were screaming, they were yelling, what can we do? We need help, whatever. There was another group of Christians on that ship and they were the Moravians they were the Moravians. And what were they doing? They were singing and they were praising and they were praying to God. Amazing. He just remembered, he remembered for us. We were so afraid we didn't have any peace. But that group, that group, they had a deep sense of peace. And so what John Wesley did is he said, I want to find out what made the difference. And so he went down to a moravian chapel in eldersgate. He went down there and he just slipped in the back and he sat on one of the seats and the speaker up the front was talking about Romans, about Romans, how God saves us by his grace that we can rest in his love and his protection. And for John Wesley, as he heard the gospel, he said, my heart was strangely warm. These incredible words. He suddenly understood the gospel. He suddenly understood the gospel. And from that day he said, I'm going to preach the good news about Jesus. I'm going to share the good news about Jesus. And so he started doing that. He started to going to cathedral and chapel and all these places to share the good news about Jesus. And he did some other things as well that the anglican church got a bit upset about. So they said, we kick you out. So what he did said, okay, I'll go outside. And he stood on the tomb of his dad and he started preaching and he said, the world is my parish. I'm going to preach everywhere. It was an amazing journey. It was incredible. He would go into these mining towns and he would preach the gospel at pubs or out in the open in the park. And it was incredible because even the miners, even the miners started to hear the gospel and want to give their lives to Jesus. And because the miners listened to Jesus and gave their lives to him, it caused chaos in the mines. Why? Because the horses, the horses in the mines were used to the miners swearing at them and yelling at them. And suddenly instead of swearing at them and yelling at them, these miners were, come on, please come this way. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with these miners who don't know how to talk to me know. It was incredible. Because of what John Wesley did, so many areas in England were completely transformed. And what did John Wesley do? John Wesley said, I'm going to preach the gospel to you, but when we're finished, I'm going to invite you to come and join a small group of people and we're going to study the Bible together, we're going to pray together, we're going to be committed to growing in grace and encouraging one another and challenging one another and being able to learn in small groups. Does that sound familiar? Sound familiar? And where did he get that? He got that from Zinzendorf, from Nicholas and Hernd Hutt, as know. The incredible reality was that John Wesley started a movement, a Bible studying, praying movement that changed England and swept over to America as well. And it's connected to you as well because in the early 19th century, there was a camp meeting in northwest England. There was a camp meeting, there was a tent raised up and the gospel was being preached. The gospel was being preached and people were praying for the Holy Spirit. And at the back of the church, at the back of the tent, the camp meeting, there was a young woman sitting at the back there and she heard the gospel being preached. And when she heard the gospel being preached and she was invited, would you like to give your life to Jesus? She put up her hand and said, yes, I want to be part of his movement. I want to be baptised and join Jesus in his mission. And her name was Alan Gould Harmond. You know, the reality is, friends, you know, the reason why we are here is because down through the ages people have looked up into the face of Jesus and they've gone, yes, I see love, I see incredible grace, I see acceptance, I see the power of transformation and I am going to commit my life to that man. The reality is, friends, that Jesus is standing here today. He's here, present here today, and he is saying to you, all this I've done for you, what are you going to do for me? What are you going to do for me? And friends, we are here today all the way in Sydney, because people like Nicholas Zinzendorf, John Wesley, Alan White, James White and other people down through the centuries have been willing to say, yes, I will join Jesus and his mission. You know, I want to go back to a particular part of the story, and the part of the story I want to go back to is this. Remember Count Nicholas Zinzendorf when he was in his mansion hearing about the conflict down in Hearndhart? What was his response? Remember what his response was? He went down and he moved into the village. Does that story ring a bell? Is there any other story which sounds similar to that? Do you remember any story? The reality is this, is that he was inspired by somebody else in John that we read before Jordan read for us before Jesus in all his glory, in his mansion in heaven. He had everything that he could want. He was the creator of everything. But he saw a great need. He saw a great need. And the record of the Bible says this, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. You know, it's fascinating. When we go to the book desire of ages, it says this. The son of God, looking upon the world, beheld suffering and misery with pity. He saw how men and women had become victims of satanic cruelty. He looked with compassion upon those who were being corrupted, murdered and lost. What a sight for God to behold. And, friends, I want to challenge this. Imagine you being Jesus or one of the angels, looking at this world, looking the conflict of this world. What a sight to behold. The bloodshed, the violence, the lying, the murder. Incredible sight to behold. What was God's response? What was God's response? Because it goes on in desire of age. It says this with intense interest. The unfallen worlds had watched to see God arise and sweep away the inhabitants of the earth. Could God have done that? Yes, he could have. He could have simply come out with his cosmic bulldozer and said, I've had enough of you all. Let me start anew. Let me start anew. But what does desirable ages say? But instead of destroying the world, God sent his son to save it. Amen. God sent his son to save it. And when the fullness of time, the time had come, God poured out a flood of healing grace that was never to be blocked or withdrawn till a plan of salvation should be fulfilled. Friends, there's a flood of grace that encircles this world, that comes from the cross, that will never be blocked or withdrawn until the very end of time. Isn't that amazing? You and I have been blessed. We've been saved. Our lives have been transformed by that healing grace. It's amazing. When you go to the scriptures, you find exactly that being shared as well in Philippians. Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others. And it goes on here as well. It says, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset of Jesus Christ, who, being in the very nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Isn't this amazing? That Jesus would have this kind of humility, this kind of willingness to come down and live amongst us. And then it goes on and says, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by being obedient to death, even death on a cross. Friends, we have been blessed by a person who has been willing to step out of his mansion and step into our world so that we might experience the love and eternal life that he had, that he has. And then it goes on. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and unto the earth and every tongue. Acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That is the amazing reality that one day Jesus is going to come back. Jesus is coming back and we will be able to acknowledge him, we'll be able to acknowledge him and kneel before him to say thank you. Thank you for what you've done. And friends, today, the reality is that Jesus is still reaching out to each one of us. He's reaching out to us and he's saying to us, all this, all this I've done for you. All this I've done for you. What are you going to do for me? What are you going to do for me? What are you going to give that because of my incredible love for you. And I want to invite you today. I want to invite you that if you would like to respond to God and to say yes, I would like to make a commitment to him, to be part of his mission team, I would like to invite you to stand with me. To stand with me and to say yes, I would like to be part of his mission team. Because, friends, as I reflect on this story, as I reflect on what God has done for us, my response is this, that I would love to commit my life to him. I want to commit my entire life to Jesus. And my question is this is, would you like to commit your lives to him today as well? If you would, I would like to invite you to stand with me and give your life to him, that you may be able to experience the incredible joy and love of being part of his mission team. Let me invite you as we pray to finish this service today. Whoever would like to join him, let me invite you to pray as we pray. Father in heaven, I just want to thank you, want to thank you for the incredible story, the incredible story of your willingness, your willingness to come down into this world. Father, we recognise that we walked away from you, we made the choice to descend into conflict, to head into this time of this period of great strife and conflict and controversy. Father, we followed the wrong leader. We followed your adversary. Father, I just want to pray. I want to pray that we might understand the power of your love, that you didn't sweep us away, you didn't just write us off, you didn't just say, well, you've chosen at the wrong path. You've gone down a track that I warned you about, but you invited us. You came down into this world, you became flesh and lived among us. Father, I just want to pray. I want to pray for every person here today that we may come to understand the depth of your love, we may come to understand the depth of your humility, that we may be able to recognise that you're inviting us to be part of not only your eternal life and salvation, but you're inviting us to become part of your mission team as well. And father, I just want to pray that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon Waitara Church. Lord, you have transformed communities and movements down through the ages. You transformed the disciples, the apostles at Pentecost, you transformed the Moravians. Father, I just want to pray that you'd pour out your Holy Spirit upon Waitara Church. That Waitara church could become a mission focused movement, a prophetic movement, a movement which is committed to being part of your team and your movement. Father, I want to thank you for every person here today who has recognised your call, recognised your incredible example and story and is willing to make that commitment and sacrifice. And Father, there's going to come a day. There's going to come a day when we will see you coming in the clouds. We'll see you coming in the clouds, Jesus, and we'll recognise that all of this was worth it. It was worth it to make a commitment to follow you. It was worth it to accept your gift of grace and salvation. It was worth it to pray for your holy spirit and to go out there to share the good news. Father, we just want to be there. We want to be there with our families and with every single person that we've shared the gospel with. Father, I just want to thank you, thank you for that vision and may we be able to hold on to it. May your love motivate us. May we be able to hold on to the incredible future. The vision of your love and your kingdom is my prayer. Thank you for hearing our prayers. Today is my prayer in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Message was made available by the Waitara Seventh-day Adventist church. For more resources like this, visit waitarachurch.org.au it's been a pleasure bringing you this programme here on 3ABN Australia radio.