It Should Bother You - Ps Mark Lassey - Encounter Church Online

[Music] hey hey welcome to church everyone we're going to praise god why don't you center your feet here we go come on come here [Music] there's a song that stirs the spirit and it calls the heart to life it's a little mean to me can you feel it start to rise can you hear [Music] is [Music] [Music] praise the lord [Applause] [Music] [Music] from the famous to the faceless from the palace [Music] it's not [Music] lift your head [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] oh [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] for the lord [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh [Applause] it's not time [Music] lift your hands [Music] oh lift you high lord we lift your heart jesus we glorify your name lord jesus [Music] let's place him in this place here's a worthy god come on just lift him up in this place people come [Music] people come together [Music] don't let your heart be troubled hold your head out i don't feel evil [Music] comes from [Music] oh [Music] our redemption our salvation [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] with him [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] right here [Music] [Music] we [Applause] [Music] [Music] let your brains [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] his thank you lord [Music] all your promises never fail as long as you say you say the words and it's done our faith is in you lord even in the valleys he's with you on the mountaintops he's with you and his promise always prevails don't ever let go of that because god had so much for you grace [Music] [Applause] [Music] sun to the setting say i will praise your name grace foreign [Music] to me from the rising sun to the sitting sin i will praise [Music] is [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] i hope and that foundation will never let me down [Music] you'll foundation let me down [Music] [Applause] me [Music] speaking out over is situations today declare it over your life from the rising sun to this day you are faithful father you are faithful you are faithful in my life [Applause] we can stand fit so we can stand here and declare the faithfulness of god because he is faithful to us he is faithful in your in your life today church he is faithful in that situation my prayer for you right now is that god would infuse a sense of bold confidence into your heart that as you start to approach it even as you as we have this moment of prayer that you look at the situations that you're faced with and instead of responding with fear that a sense of godly confidence would rise in your heart that a sense of boldness would start to overcome you so that the fear the feelings that hurt the the things that you're going through are overwhelmed by the power of god and the presence of god in your life i'm praying for a boldly confidence right now we serve a god that is faithful there are some prayer requests we got somebody who's praying for brain cancer god is faithful in that situation we are somebody who's praying for a broken ankle right now god is faithful in that situation we declare healing over that person's side there's somebody here that's that's praying for financial breakthrough they're praying for provision god is faithful for that person god is faithful for that person one last prayer request one last prayer request about a person who's had a back accident who's got like some serious damage to their spine god is faithful in that situation and i don't know what situation is going on in your world i don't know what you've been faced with this week or this month but let me tell you that god is faithful to you god will not leave you high and dry god is not going to leave you to fail but god is faithful in your world so what i want us to do church is right now why don't you just whatever you are believing god for i want you to start speaking out the faithfulness of god over that situation if you're believing for healing start to speak the faithfulness of god over that body part or over that mental health or over that family situation or over that financial situation start to declare that we serve a faithful god we serve a provider we serve a god who is not going to leave us or forsake us because he is faithful to us he is faithful to us god we lift up every need in this place god we lift up any person we may be struggling in the flesh or struggling with their thoughts and we declare your faithfulness god we declare your provision we declare your breakthrough god we declare your utter transformation of that situation right now we stand on your faithfulness we stand on your profession we stand on your word that has said you will be our provider you will be our carer you will be our healer you'll be our salvation you'll be a breakthrough in the mighty name of jesus faith in jesus [Applause] [Music] my hope is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] from the rising sun to the settings say i will praise your name is [Music] from the rising sun to the setting sing i will praise your name great is your faithfulness to me [Music] spirit sound rushing wind [Music] turn we need a fresh swing [Music] oh [Music] strengths [Music] we [Music] pour your spirit [Music] the power your spirit out [Music] pour your spirit out [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] pretty [Music] we can hear the wind blowing blowing blowing the move upon [Music] we can hear the wind [Music] we can hear [Music] let's see [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] to pour your spirit down [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] come on come on what do we lift when we clap our hands we're gonna praise the name of jesus this morning come on praise the name of jesus this morning we lift you up jesus we worship you we praise you we honor you we lift we magnify you this morning you're so awesome and we're gonna do that one more time we're gonna lift up a mighty shout and hand of praise this morning because i love it the bible says magnify the lord in other words what does that mean it means to just make jesus bigger than our problems this morning we all got problems i got problems the guest speaker he's got a lot of problems we've all got problems but here's the thing this morning when we come to church we don't focus and magnify the problem we focus on and magnify the savior and his name is jesus so on the count of three let's lift up an almighty shout of praise and you watch the joy of the lord become your strength this morning on the count of three one two three come on praise him praise you praise you praise you praise thank you mighty god thank you mighty god you know what just incredible absolutely amazing i just know that this morning our 9 a.m service was absolutely amazing and pastor matt lassie brought and can i this is not hype hype remember by definition is when you are insincere about your enthusiasm now i don't hear any insincerity in our enthusiasm the sword this is not hype this is praising god the way the bible says to praise him you want to know how to praise god read the psalms in the bible it's clashing and smashing the symbol although i think he's a little bit loud no not at all he's amazing i love harley in fact you know what we're going to do a five second shout out to harley shannon the incredible drummer you are phenomenal i just want to say i'm telling you one of the people one of the people there's many people that have blessed my heart and christine since we've been the pastors here at encounter church but no one more than this man right here you got no idea how much work he does behind the scenes he's totally volunteer doesn't get paid one cent and i'm telling you he serves this house like i've not seen anyone serve a house before not only that he's such he does it with a such a soft heart it's incredible he's here on a tuesday night he's here on a monday tuesday wednesday thursday fixing things he's the head of all of our production at encounter church and uh how long you been in the church harley 27 years he's 29 years old so how old are you yeah he's 29 so he's 30 in october he was born into this church honestly he i don't find one bitter or negative bone in his body why because he loves jesus he looks beyond all the problems let me tell you there's a lot of problems we have with our production during the you wouldn't know on a sunday because he's there gone and fixing the whole thing and i'm just like do you know what one of the reasons i love encountered church not only for all of you i love all of you so much but i love him so much and you make it a joy leading this church so one more time give it up to harley incredible and i'm looking forward we've got dinner at your house on wednesday night so i'm looking forward to that and it's going to be amazing and i forgot what i was going to say i could go around and just actually give it up for all the kids workers i think they're amazing you guys are phenomenal and uh there's nothing better than watching i love the fact that our kids can come in during the worship and experience the presence of god train them in the way that they should go they will not depart from it so there is something spiritual they might just see some lights and music but actually there's something spiritual going on behind the scenes and they're growing up just like samuel did in the presence of god and there's something powerful about that so thank you i want to honor every single kids worker here who work tirelessly every single week dealing with my crazy tired kids when i look forward to church on sunday because i'm like there you go it's like a handball have fun and uh what a blessing what a blessing to have an amazing kids team so thank you we love you so much and we honor you for what you do and you know what i want to thank as well i don't know what this feels like the end of a conference for some weird reason i'm just in this thankful mood i want to thank all of the now i call them the mature age the heroes in the house the heroes are the 45s and above i've just made the age even younger so tony moore is a hero [Music] he is mate he tries to act young you know he looks hip but not only does he have 10 sugars in his coffee but he goes a lot he's a hero so we love tony and joe but i love the heroes led by the amazing milton and liz brensel give it up for them and i won't hold it against you that you are from new zealand but i'll look beyond that just for this morning but we love you guys thank you so much for leading and uh why don't we honor all of the heroes in the house this morning you guys are so good and i will say this you might think oh the church is so young and all the kids and the youth and all that but you know what the reality is that we are who we are today because of your faithfulness and we are literally building upon what you have laid the foundation you guys laid but the awesome thing is the kingdom of god you're also part of the future as well so we love you and i thank you so much you're amazing one more time give it up for jesus the one who's here fantastic all righty well we better continue on with the rest of our service and i think i'm supposed to release the kids to kinsh kids church now and so have fun kids and uh hopefully you're gonna get lollies and chocolates and all those wonderful things and uh you're gonna have lots of fun now before you take your seats this morning i want to welcome all of our new people and visitors that may be here today and on the way in then my voice i'm so sick if i wasn't didn't have a guest speaker this morning i'll probably be home in bed i'm not contagious and i don't have covered but i'm going to sanitize this microphone as soon as i'm done but i want to welcome all of our visitors and new people that might be hey what are you doing sitting down i want you to stand up go and say hello to someone around you and introduce yourself to someone that you've never met and they want to get on with the rest of our service this morning [Music] [Music] all righty [Music] all righty well let's grab our seats when we can [Music] and we've got a phenomenal service coming up and uh great message and also jumping castle family fun day at the end of the service they're always great but i'm so thankful that you're all here this morning but what i've got to do everyone i love a talkative church but everyone just do this go shh oh that's good i shouldn't have done that i feel like a school teacher now [Music] but we're going to welcome all of our visitors and new people that are here this morning and uh on the way in you would have got one of these encounter church boxes now i will let you know what we have in here because it's pretty cool i'm probably going to eat this before the end of the service so sorry alyssa we've got a beautiful cookie these things massive we don't do things in half measures that encounter church all right we're the real pill no no we don't have just like a fun sized chocolate bar we're giving you a full size chocolate bar and we believe that in the kingdom whatever you eat in the house of god does not count as calories right the holy spirit forgives us of that and we have some mints and a pen in there as well but it's just to say thank you so much for coming we love that you're here and uh you're very very important to us so without further ado on the count of three come on church i shouldn't have to count three all the time why don't you welcome all of our visitors and new people this morning awesome and at the end of the service um we've got a special lounge as well we can grab a free coffee and our pastas leaders are gonna be in there and uh and it'll just be great to have you and host you uh for the rest of the service which will be fantastic all righty so good to see you and uh we're going to continue our worship this morning and uh please excuse my throat and my energy i'm just so it's uh i'll uh just get through and then we're gonna it's gonna be a great service i'm so thankful pastor mclassie's bringing the word this morning and uh but before we get there uh we're gonna we're gonna come around a time of giving and uh this is a continuation of our worship and if you're new or visiting uh feel under no obligation um to give but if you would like to fantastic but please no obligations for our church our family opportunity to sow into the vision and the mission of encounter church and i really see this time as a time where we can partner with what god's doing and encounter church we have many departments many ministry teams in the church i could highlight heaps of them we have a in fact you know what we're going to honor another couple i've just seen you there behind all the kids is uh one of our elders as well is pastor les and carol penaluna and they're phenomenal people and uh honestly you guys are a blessing to us as a blessing to the church what you do on thursday with free food thursday is mind-blowingly good and uh putting together i think you're here from like 8 a.m until 4 p.m or whatever it is every single week and uh total volunteer what they get they do is they get together a whole it's like a it turns into a supermarket and people from the community can come in and receive uh free food and just be a blessing that's being the hands and feet of jesus and you guys are leading that team so well what a great blessing that you are but that's just one area uh that we have incredible leaders serving uh our community week in week out and so here's the deal you may not be able to be part of free food thursday because you work on a thursday but the way you can be a part of what they're doing is by sowing into the vision and the mission of the church and every time you give out of obedience excuse me and generosity then what you do is you actually partner with what god's doing so when i give give every week i know that i'm partnering with what jesus is doing he's touching the hearts of the community you should just get around them and listen to some of the stories of people coming in and being blessed by that is absolutely phenomenal so thank you guys and thank you church for your generosity this is a this is what i said it's an extenuation extension of our worship we've just lifted our hands and sung a few songs that's worship but it's also worship when we sow and give into the kingdom of god and so i want to give you opportunity to feel your giving out now um we have credit card slips on on the seats if you're easy to get that way thank you to everyone who gives my direct deposit online and uh also textgiving i gave in the 9am service and then i'm going to pray and then i'll jump down just hold your giving in your hand this morning and uh heavenly father we thank you your presence is here uh we honor you for what you've done in our church and our lives heavenly father i pray as we give into your church and your kingdom not only you will bless us your word says you give seed to the sower so god as we sow continue to give us seed and i pray that that seed would grow into the fruit of your love touching a community the love of your son jesus so bless us as we give we pray in jesus name and everybody said amen thank you church so much for your generosity and as the the buckets come let's have a look at encounter news [Music] hey church welcome to encounter news it's bethany and nathaniel we have some great things happening in the life of our church let's check them out right now are you looking for the next stage of leadership growth in your life do you feel cold to serve in ministry or even plan to be a part of future campus plants then i have great news for you meegee intake is now here for leadership college with pastor chris invest in your leadership development today and be a part of intake [Applause] [Music] so [Music] if you're brand new to encounter meet the family lunch is the perfect opportunity to get to know the encounter family we'd love you to get to know us and for us to know you lunch is covered so join us for our next family lunch we'd love to see you there if baptism is your next step then we encourage you to sign up and get baptized this will be a life-changing moment and a powerful next step in your walk with christ if you're in service or at home i just want to encourage you guys you know jump on the stream like comment say hello to someone on there um and you know like our facebook page as well if you're not already we'll see you next sunday [Music] fantastic all right well we've got a special guest speaker um and really great friend of christina and i pastor mark lassie and uh honestly i've got so many incredible stories that i could say about our friendship over the last uh you know many years but i can just look back on many many times where you've blessed me and helped me in so many different occasions in terms of leadership and ministry and actually count it a great privilege and honor that we're friends and that we can do life together um so he's a friend first but secondly he's executive pastor of probably australia is one of australia's largest churches it's a global church they've got campuses everywhere around the world you'll hear about a little bit about that i think they're about 35 000 people strong globally which is incredible and uh led by pastor mark varages and so he's got an incredible word we heard it at the 9 a.m i believe it's life-changing i really want you to open your hearts i want you to be full of faith and expectation let's not just spectate uh but let's really engage with the word this morning and it's a great honor to introduce to you uh pastor mark lassie so as he comes why don't you give him incredible counter church welcome as he brings the word this morning [Music] thank you so much pastor chris i love your pastors pastor chris and christine just absolute friends of mine we've known each other for about 15 years i met it when we were about seven years of age and um it's been it's been a hard life now it is um it's just an honor to be here adelaide was my home for about 20 years so i feel like i've come back home been in perth for the last seven years and as pastor chris said i've been part of an amazing church over there called kingdom city and uh it's just exciting it's exciting to be here and hearing so much of the story about encounter church and what god's doing seeing seeing this place filled with people filled with faith who's ready to hear the word this morning um i'll tell you a little bit about me my i'm married i've been uh married for oh it must be 24 years 24 years to to one lady called kelly she's a very blessed lady very blessed tells me all the time i'm the object of her desire she's uh and i've got three incredible sons i've got a picture of him on the screen uh just so you know who i'm just kidding i didn't give them a picture they're just panicking on the back like to make the production guys panic a little bit um it's so good man i love your state it's very sexy are we allowed to say that insurance [Music] makes me want to moonwalk but i won't uh i want to talk about the topic it should bother you that it doesn't bother you just turn to your neighbor and say man that should bother you my middle son his name's joel he's an awesome kid but there's a lot of things in life i don't know if you've got a teenager or if you are a teenager he's just one of those guys that not much bothers him but it should the smell in his bedroom should bother him it bothers the rest of us but to him i don't see the problem but there's quite a few things he's just his natural personality but at the start of the year um i noticed that he was starting to limp and i said to him mate what's going on he's like don't worry about it dad it doesn't bother me and he's like you know he's grimacing all the time it's like mate it looks like it bothers you it doesn't bother me daddy's getting quite anxious and upset at the questioning and of course then his mother goes can we have a look at it no don't worry about it doesn't bother me he doesn't want to make a fuss and so a few days later it's gone from kind of a limp to the point where he couldn't put a shoe on so he goes to school with one shoe on and a sock and a slide on the other foot i might do there's an issue he's like don't worry about it dad it doesn't bother me i'm like you look like a fool like it it surely it's like no it doesn't bother me well a few days later it's escalated to the point where he's like quasimodo he's like [Music] i'm like all right my time out like this this is an issue it's like don't worry it doesn't bother me i'm like mate it should bother you let's stop so i called called kelly over um i said let's have a look at what's going on with this toe it's been like two and a half weeks now just gradually gotten worse and so he we take his slide off and then we take his sock off and we we have a look at his toe it's nice he wants to see what the toe look like bunch of weirdos christine over there let's have a have a look at the have we got a picture of the toe [Music] dude that's i'm like mate that should bother you that's an issue you could take it down we're eating afterwards um it looks like like a tom and jerry movie you know where they hit it with a hammer it's like man that thing like radiated heat it's had its own ecosystem in there i'm like made that that's an issue like we we've got to do something about it like don't worry about it that it will fix itself i'm like it's been three weeks almost made it's not fixing itself so we're taking to the doctors and the doctor you know you're in trouble when when he took the sock off and the doctor's like i was like oh man you shouldn't be doing that doc you're meant to be the one giving us comfort he's like man this is an issue and so he gives him like the strongest antibiotics that you can buy that you can get through the pharmacy and he says look what you need to do three days if this thing isn't getting better rapidly comes straight back so three days later it's not getting better in fact it's getting worse so we take him to the doctors and we walk in and he looks at it again and goes you need to go straight to the emergency room we're like why what is that and he goes this could be bad it goes it should it could be so bad if we don't treat this straight away it could kill him and i was like settle down and he's like no the infection can get into his bloodstream and kill him at best we might have to chop it off and i said if we have to chop it off do we have to get a tow truck i write all my own material so we take him down to the er and um we we get we get rushed through the er for a toe it's like people there with wounds on their head it's like ah we've got a bad toe here ah straight through so we're sitting there and the nurse comes she freaks out in the end they've got plastic surgeons they've got a team of people that are looking at this toe because it's so bad that they're that they're thinking we're going to have to surgically have to do something and i said to the doctor i said what what's what's the issue why didn't the antibiotics work and he said the antibiotics didn't work because although there's enough of this antibiotic in the bloodstream nothing was getting to the infection because the infection had built a membrane against it that was impenetrable to the infection and i was like wow this is crazy and so what they had to do was was cut it open and squeeze this infection out i've got a video of that who wants to hand up for the video they they make him different in gala wow we're going to do ministry for 50 of the congregation afterwards we're not showing the video okay so anyway they squeeze it there's literally a massive hole in my son's toe now where they they had to extract this out but i was driving home from the hospital um he had to stay in for 48 hours and i'm driving home from the hospital the first night it's about 12 30 at night i'm like why do all these issues happen to parents at the like why can't they happen at 10 o'clock in the morning it's crazy anyway i'm driving home and the holy spirit speaks to me very clearly and he says that's just like your soul and i was like his manky toe is like my soul and sometimes the holy spirit gives you a statement that's more of a question like what does this mean so i really started to dwell on it and god talked took me to hebrews chapter 12. i want to read you something and i want you to to picture yourself in in the story this is the writer of hebrews and he's writing to the church and and can we put it on a screen it says as for us that's you and i we all have this great witnesses who encircle us like clouds so we must let go of every wound everybody say wound that has pierced us and every sin everybody say sin we so easily fall into why then we will be able to run life's marathon race with passion determination for the path that has already been marked out before us and so the context of this is beautiful it's it's the writer saying man god's got a god's got a pathway for you he's got such a purpose for you and he wants us he implores us to run our life's marathon race with passion and determination i love the story where we were celebrating what was it harley it's like from three to 39 or whatever it was it's been a tough life for him um but like there's some things that he's had to overcome that we've all have to overcome as i look across this crowd there's there's a marathon life that people have run but i know that you know and i know many people that should be sitting in the pews next to you that aren't and the writer of hebrews is saying let's let's stop for a moment and deal with some stuff so in five years time we're still sitting here in ten years time we're still praising god he says there's two areas that we can fall into no matter how old or young you are one is the wounds that pierce us the second is the sin that we so easily fall into i find it interesting that he addresses the wounds first because most of our sin is a byproduct of our wound i said to my son how did this happen how did your toe happen he goes i don't know something pierced my toe i can't remember exactly when but i know that something happened that pierced my toe and i never did anything about it i never stopped to pull that to pull that that that that thing out whether it's a bit of glass or a bit of wood or whatever that pierced it it it grew into this massive infection and i wonder for you and i if there's been wounds in our world that have pierced us leads us to the question what is a wound if we know what sin is sin is missing the mark unless you're perfect we're all sinned but the good thing is we've all fallen short of the glory of god but it doesn't stop his goodness and his kindness invading our world so what is a wound a wound is a word that was spoken to you in a time of vulnerability a wound is a disappointment that's framed your whole perspective of what god can do or what you can do a wound is an event that happened to you as a child a wound is a moment that happened in a church where you trusted somebody and they betrayed that trust or at work where you thought you were going to get a promotion and it was given to something else more people lose their faith in god not because of sin but because of a wound a moment of time where they were vulnerable open transparent and it didn't work out like they thought see i didn't realize but this happened to me about october last year god was really kind to me but that kindness appeared in a way that was painful see my my life circumstances whether it was at work with church my job as a pastor my role as a leader began to get really frustrating i was working hard and i don't know if you've ever felt like this when you're working so hard but nothing just seems to be working out it's almost the harder you work the more it doesn't seem to work out then stuff at home with my wife and with my boys it was like we were walking in different directions and and we were trying hard but there was like this this missing link and i sat down on the on a pew out the front of our church building one day with with my pastor passed him up and he looked at me and he asked me a question which a lot of people ask each other how you doing but this wasn't like a how you doing yeah good man yeah good but i responded in that way sometimes when people ask you how you're doing if you're an optimistic person or a person that doesn't want to go deep immediately you start to frame a story that you think the other person would want to hear how you doing oh i'm doing amazing fantastic you wouldn't believe how good i'm doing or you just kind of push it to the side yeah you're doing all right we've all got battles but pass the mark out of his kindness went no no how you doing and i and it was like my soul responded before my thoughts did i i looked at him and i went i don't think i'm okay i didn't and i didn't know why i just knew that i wasn't excited about the future i knew that if i kept on doing what i could keep on doing i could keep on doing it but i wasn't enjoying it it didn't cause my soul to jump i i just do it because i could i could determine myself to keep on doing it because that's what i do so when pastor mark went how you doing it was like god held up a stop sign and when i'm not letting you go any further which at the time rocked me because i'm one of those people that i'm driven i'm purposeful i i i have a reason for living i'm i'm leading a congregation of four thousand people i've got connect leaders i've got a family i've got a wife and three boys that rely on me that need me to keep on going and all of a sudden i'm met with this stop which makes you think if i stop who's gonna start but it's funny doesn't god say i'll be your strength in your weakness why are you pretending to be strong when he could be your strength so i started this journey of unpacking who i was why i did what i did where i was going and god brought people that were so kind to me around and started just to speak into my soul i started seeing a counselor and i remember walking into this counselor and he had this big sign on his wall that said if you don't get counseling you're forcing the people that you love to have to get counselling well yeah fair enough and and he sat me down with with my wife kelly and he asked me so talk to you talk to me about your childhood and i thought what a cliche he said no tell me so i said i had a pretty normal childhood my birth mother left when i was two years of age she was struggling with same-sex attraction so she tried that relationship over being a mother but that was okay because my my dad remarried quite quickly and and that lady stepped into a mother role he said oh how did that make you feel oh no i think i was fine like replace one mum with another mum we're fine we get on with life you do what you do said how did you go with your new mum i said yeah she was a good lady she did her best she had her own issues she said how did that make you feel i said i think i was fine i think we adapted i think it affected my brother and my sister a lot but i don't think it affected me that much he asked me about four or five questions and after about the fifth question he said i want to stop you right there do you notice every time i ask you how you feel you tell me what you think you know when i've never thought about it like that and he said you don't think it it doesn't bother you but it affected you and there's many things in our world that we won't let bother us but man it affects us just ask the people around you they'll be like oh yeah issues and i could tell you and i believed it with every bit of sincerity man it didn't affect me but it did there's circumstances in your world there's moments there's wounds that have affected you deeply and he said do you know that in those first two or three years that's where you build emotional connection you never had that that that's where you bond to people where you get an emotional intelligence that's that affected you mate you've you've been able to cope and you've been able to create a world for yourself but don't believe that it didn't affect you and i'm here to tell you there's things that have happened to you that are affecting you words that were spoken in a moment of vulnerability when i was in year 12 i i stood in front of the class and i did my year 12 moderation my english presentation and i was so nervous but i prepared so much and i stood there and i give gave this this presentation about how the next generation was going to change the world and in my head i had this moment that at the end everybody was going to stand to their feet like they're going to at the end of this message and just start to clap and cheer and the men are going to cry and the women are going to cheer and and i was saying and i walked off the stage to silence and my teacher met me about halfway and he put his hand patronizingly on my shoulder looked me in the eye and he said wow that was the worst public speech i've ever heard in my life don't ever take up public speaking for a living i might send him the podcast afterwards i didn't think it affected me but i never spoke publicly for about five or six years a little wound there's things that have snuck into your world wounds that are there that it's like it doesn't bother me hebrews chapter luke 18. jesus gives this parable of two people as a pharisee and a tax collector and it's talking about people that are self-reliant or self-righteous he says there's two people the pharisee and the tax collector for the context of the day the pharisees were the ones that were posturing themselves perceived as the righteous and holy ones in the community they were the standard of what's good and jesus says there's a pharisee and he goes into the temple to pray and just lists off his resume of what good things he's done oh father i've prayed and i've fasted and i do good things and i pay all my tithes and then he looks at the tax collector and he points to him and he says i thank god i'm not like him not like the guy with the issues then it switches to this tax collector says the tax collector walks into the temple buries his face in his hands he says god i'm not worthy but i'm in desperate need of a savior jesus says which one of these two men do you think is righteous now to the crowd this pharisee was doing all the great things all the things that were good the tax collector had no place being in the temple let alone receiving forgiveness and jesus says this audacious things he says the one that buried his face in this his hands and says i need a savior now i'd always thought that what jesus was doing was this role play look at these two guys who do you think is good and who do you think is bad and we get to objectively stand outside and go oh yes it's definitely well it must be the tax collector because you've already given us the answer to this exam but that's not what jesus was doing the pharisee and the tax collector are you and me see we are always either the pharisee or the tax collector we are always the one that is self-righteous and justifying ourselves protecting our issues although we're the ones saying jesus i need your help i am broken there's a writer called dr tony demelo and he talks about this in regards to our socially acceptable sins he says so many of us are good at identifying those sins you know the hate and the lying and the murder and the stealing oh yes they're so bad but we've got these socially acceptable sins that so often are actually celebrated he uses this illustration he says it's like the person that feels this deep need to to help the orphans in africa he says man i just want to help the orphans in africa so he starts an orphanage in africa and this thing grows and blows up and he's doing such a good job and he says isn't it funny that his deep desire was to help the africans to make himself feel better so really you're helping somebody else to make yourself isn't that the epitome of selfishness you think about the statement happy wife happy life let me make you happy because if you're happy it makes me happy so we all at the root of what we do and what we say is this internal desire to please ourself that's why the jesus says it's the it's the tax collector that goes man i am in desperate need of a savior that's why paul says i'm the chief of sinners when i want to do the right thing so often it's actually out of the core motivation for self so i do the wrong thing even though the the veneer of it seems so good and the answer it is don't stop doing it just realize why you're doing it god i didn't realize now what i didn't realize the ramifications of being rejected by my birth mother and not developing feelings was i could push through when other people gave up oh mark's amazing nothing affects him people would celebrate my sin celebrate my wounds i was object orientated goal focused i'm going to prove myself why because i was rejected i had a deep need for affirmation and approval now if you want a dangerous position being be a pastor and stand on a stage and they need the approval of the people that you're speaking to i'm standing here going please love me please like me because if you don't i don't have any intrinsic value a wound that pierced shaping my reality and god go and wait a minute we're going to deal with some stuff mark we're going to get the spiritual scalpel out second corinthians chapter 7 verse 10 it says for godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation not to be regretted but the sorrow of the world produces depth can we leave that up there go back for a minute i i remember reading this the holy spirit takes me to this and i'm like what is godly sorrow surely god wants us to be joyful why would god want godly sign and realize godly sorrow is that moment when you realize man i've got an issue wait when you let it bother you wait where you stop and go dude this is a this is a wound for 43 years not acknowledging man this is something that this is something that happened to me and you know the hardest thing to reconcile was it wasn't my fault it wasn't my fault that my birth mother walked out of me that she chose another relationship over a relationship with me that she never fought to see me for 16 years i never even knew where she exist where she was and she never knew where i was and she never desired to care enough that's not my fault and i feel that there's people in this room and it's not your fault something happened to you and it wasn't your fault you were forgotten or abused you were you were spoken to an and a wound happened to you and it's not your fault and you need to acknowledge it's not your fault but it was my responsibility and that's hard man when you go how did i end up with this how do i have to deal with this but you know that the horrible thing is when you see parents that don't take responsibility for their own brokenness so then they just pass it on to the next generation and i said to myself my sons deserve me becoming whole the church that i lead the people that i pastor deserve they don't want me filtering myself through my pain and through my brokenness and trying to project my issues onto them and then trying to get them to make me feel better trying to prove to them that i have worth jesus the father said to jesus before he healed anybody before he did anything he said well done my goodness he said this is my son who are my wealth please in other words before you do anything you have value i didn't feel value unless i did something godly sorrow was stopping i took eight weeks off i'm gonna stop and the the flesh part of me is like but if you stop it's all going to fall apart what a lie you are not the alpha and the omega you are not the beginning and the end you are not anybody's savior just ask your wife had to stop let things affect me not so it left me there because godly sorrow brings repentance what's repentance just calling it what god calls it so many of us call our sin by its coping mechanism i'm i have a deep fear of rejection so i work hard to please people man i'm a hard worker i've got a fear of failure so i am driven to succeed and we won't actually stop i know mums that clean their house so much they have their kids in so much order but the reason why is they're afraid of being out of control none of us are bad people twitch is broken you know the old testament jezebel gets such a bad rap jezebel wasn't a bad person she was a broken person that never dealt with her wound her father rejected her and sold her as a peace trading commodity to another country so she's forever manipulating circumstances to create a safe place for her so many of us are falling into the same trap trying to create a safe place so that we can function so that we can survive and we call it our strength i called my brokenness my strength and it was only until i was willing to say jesus i've had enough i'm calling it what you call it i lie and control and manipulate to create a safe place and i don't want to be that person anymore and i love it says godly sorrow brings repent repentance that brings salvation and i love this bit at the end it says that leaves no regret i'm like i'm 43 god i've been in more services than you could ever believe and i said to god one day i said god why did it take me this long am i just a real slow learner he's like yeah but that's not the issue it's like no mark it's okay you needed to be strong but not anymore see there's times where we need to be strong but i love this story as i close mark chapter 3 jesus walks into a village and as he walks into this village in in the new king james that has has headings over the stories and it says the man with the withered hand jesus walks into this village and sees this man it's interesting because jesus never calls him that but the community knew who he was jesus walks up to him and he says this phrase he says stretch out your w stretch out your hand he doesn't even mention the with it he just said stretch out your hand now i imagine as a man that's had a withered hand since birth he'd develop some coping mechanisms about how to live with the withered hand he could eat he could clean he could get himself around he probably could paint a picture go to the toilet there's probably not much he could do in fact he probably could have juggled he probably had a few party tricks to the point where one of his best attributes that what you could do with two hands he could only do with one but jesus walks into his space and he says stretch out your head now i'm guessing that he had this choice he could have stretched out his good head oh god let me jesus let me tell you about my good hand let me tell you how functional i am let me tell you how strong i am but the truth is god can only heal what you reveal so this man with the withered head a lover jesus never talks to you and gives you a name by your dysfunction you could have pretended that i'm not i'm okay jesus i don't have any issues i'm okay you ever met that person that has the issue that you know in a crowd when you're talking they won't stop talking they commandeer every conversation and make it about them and they walk away and the group goes oh my goodness you're that person you don't believe me ask your kids they'll tell you you've got issues ask your parents jesus says stretch out your hair this man with the wound since birth starts to stretch out that hand and it says that as he stretched it out muscles that didn't exist begin to appear bones that were withered and broken begin to strengthen and straighten fingers that weren't even there begin to outreach to the point where by the time he'd reached out his hand to touch the savior that wound was him i think of all the times he's left all the times he's had to be strong all the time he's had to pretend that he's okay but when the healer walks in the room and says stretch out your withered soul why would you pretend that you're okay anymore it's like going to the doctors and him saying hey you've got skin cancer and you treat the rash with a cream why i'm here to tell you it wasn't your fault but the brokenness has to stop today today might be the start of a journey it took me eight weeks to start talking to people that i love and respected and just going i'm not i'm not okay anymore that wound is affecting me god i call it what you call it it's broken but you're the healer all those things that i thought i held together god if they're not of you i don't want them anymore and in this year i've seen god be so kind i feel like god wants to show you how kind he is he's good that's who he is but kindness is what he does i think about all the miracles that he does the widow woman with the dead sun just kindness coming and saying i'm gonna rescue you you think wow how good is that to the blind man all i can say is i see how good was god [Music] can you feel his presence here can you hear the healer speaking to you can i get you to stand to your feet i really feel in this service there's people that are desperately trying to prove himself trying to prove their parents wrong i will be something trying to prove those people that ridicule you i'm gonna show them it's time to take the wound out fathers man if we would stop being driven by our ego you're a son of the king of kings can you feel him healing your heart even now just lift up your hands right now holy spirit just come it wasn't your fault fathers that were never told that they are worth it that you have what it takes can you hear the father of heaven saying i'm proud of you stop pretending you're okay i've got you [Music] people that were abused as children it's not your fault but the heel is in the room right now just lift up your hands put your hands on your heart whatever it is get on your knees the healer is here he's saying stretch out your withered soul [Music] stretch holy spirit you are so kind [Music] there is no regrets but today is the day it starts [Music] today's the day the healing gets a little bit deeper than the surface today's the day you get beyond hype today's the day you stop pretending [Music] holy spirit [Music] you don't have to be strong anymore he's strong [Music] you don't have to be able anymore [Music] i feel like god's put a dream in some of your hearts but you've taken control of that dream it was never yours to start with let it go give it back to god [Music] he doesn't care what anybody else thinks you do not embarrass him [Music] you do you cannot disappoint him it's impossible to disappoint god you're a great dad [Music] you're a great father holy spirit right now just move just begin to take that wound out those words i rebuke the power that they've had over people's souls i shattered them i cursed them and i send them back to the pit of hell from where they came you have lived too long rent free in the minds of sons and daughters we give you the eviction notice from heaven you have no right anymore nightmares will stop tonight come on holy spirit seek if you have nightmares just put your hand on your head i curse those nightmares tonight your sleep will be sweet those reoccurring dreams that happen because of that wound we cut its power off in the name of jesus we rip it out and we speak the freedom that jesus you died for you said it is finished you complete us somebody with back pain lower back pain and it's sharp pain down your legs you haven't not connected it but there's a there's a bitterness in your soul and it's causing your bones to ache release them they didn't know what they did they're just broken people passing their brokenness on just release them god this is jesus on the cross father forgive them they don't know what they do they think they're doing the right thing they didn't know god move with their compassion the same compassion that you have for us [Music] stop blaming [Music] it's not your fault it's not their fault no one has to pay because jesus is already paid he took their sin he took their brokenness to the cross as well release them over somebody that your your daughter has spoken words to your soul that has crushed you bless them [Music] the power of those words stop you're going to be able to love your daughter again you're going to be able to pour into them again god is healing that relationship in his presence right now holy spirit come and move come and move your loving kindness it's better than life [Music] people have spoken to your words at school one teacher one so-called friend spoken and it's it stopped your expectations of what you wanted to believe the god vision i speak that god vision back again teacher does not create your future god does that friend does not create that future god does god protect our youth's heart right now protect and pour out your spirit upon them let them dream dreams and see visions let them run and not grow weary let them walk and not faint breathe holy spirit right now [Music] now pastor chris i want to pray for you i feel like god god gave you the strength of a right hand and he's always given you that strength and there's a strength that you you know it doesn't come from you but i see you using your left hand and you're good at your left hand as well it's almost like you're ambidextrous but there's a there's a strength that god has placed in you and and why you could do it here man the grace that's on your world to run to swing all of a sudden your eyes to your vision see we can sometimes we can do two things but our vision is always geared to one hand i feel like god is like man you're doing it but when you see what god has for you with the strength of your right hand there's going to be a multiplication in your spirit there's going to be an ease about it things are going to come at you you'll be able to hit that home run you're going to be able to hit that six and you're like man this is way easier than i ever thought this is there's a natural grace and i just feel like god is calling you to that place the strength of a right hand the strength that i've given you i pray right now that you would be so unsatisfied with anything else apart from it it's like you're not even going to be able to use your left hand anymore and it's this this deep yearning desire to align with the god-created strength that you've always had and i speak the multiplication of heaven upon it nothing will satisfy your soul nothing will satisfy it's going to give you birth i know you've done fasting but there's going to be a season of fasting that is just birthed out of a desire for more nothing else will satisfy no words from anybody else will cause you to look to the left or the right it's like the gravitation of his grace just pulling you so i release the favor of heaven upon him right now i release the favor of heaven upon him right now seeking [Music] [Music] [Music] one more thing before i pass on the mic back to passenger chris can i ask every person to just close their eyes probably gone a little bit longer than i anticipated but i want to invite anybody that doesn't know jesus you might have thought jesus is a religious figure barking orders but he's so kind and you know your soul is so far from him you'll be honest to say i need jesus i need him as my lord and my savior i've i've allowed my brokenness to shape my perspective for too long and today i repent i'm coming back to the father maybe for the first time you're just willing to say jesus i need you or you've let that relationship grow so stale and cold and monotonous and routine come when i count to three of that issue you need jesus christ as your lord and savior one two three just lift up your hands nice and high i want to pray with you would be my honor to pray with you this morning holy spirit as he's moving yeah i see hands getting lifted up all over the room just honest people saying i've had enough what an amazing place to be i'm i'm sick of pretending today jesus save me save me from myself i pray for every hand that's lifted up the reality of god would invade their world in such a profound way it would shape who they are we give to you our sin our shame our hurt and our pain and in response we receive your love and your forgiveness your future and your hope i am yours and you are mine in the name of jesus can we just lift up our hands one more time all across this room that god is going to lead us in a moment of worship holy spirit just calm whatever you're doing finish it just let his goodness and his kindness just open up your heart again is jesus jesus eat your freshmen is [Music] just let his presence come and touch your soul this morning [Music] for your spirit [Music] the power of your presence [Music] jesus christ [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] out [Music] for your spirit [Music] thank thank you let me just read this scripture what an amazing word by the way and just it is life-changing incredible and uh i love it 3 john 1 verse 2 says dear friend i pray that you may enjoy good health that's like your life is healthy a healthy life and it all may go well with you even as your soul prospers this morning what an incredible word about just dealing with the brokenness and the issues of the soul and as you do that everything in your life everything else in your life begins to prosper and so right now one more time if i want to pray for you i'm going to pray for a healthy soul i'm going to pray for a prosperous soul i'm going to pray that the lord heals you of any any issue whatever's going on in your heart this morning we're going to believe for an incredible rest of our lives and rest of this year rest of our weeks in jesus name so heavenly father right now we thank you for an incredible word lord jesus as we open up as we stretch our withered hand toward you this morning i pray healing i pray health i pray wholeness lord jesus i declare a prosperous soul on every single person here this morning i declare that we would walk out hill healed i pray that we would walk out whole i pray that we would walk out with your presence your love your power your grace in our hearts in jesus name i pray for prosperous souls this morning in jesus mighty name and everybody said amen come on give uh pastor marca great hand this morning [Music] just a couple of things before we actually quickly just going to do one thing before we go just quickly take your seats um and then we're going to close the service very very shortly actually just one final thing is we have got this so cool is we have got a young adult bonfire next sunday night i think i might even come to that and so it's a facebook event i think and so respond on that come along it's going to be incredible see ben and carly as well at the end of the service you want more information about that um but before we go we're going to take up one sort of love ministry offering for pastor mark and uh who was blessed by that message this morning and i was um and so now this is our opportunity to sow back into his life and into his ministry as well and uh really so a seed of blessing to him and his family i want to i want pastor mark to leave this place blessed and uh feel the love from encountered church and so um we can sew into his ministry now we have i think credit cards are on seats if you want to do that just write a pastor mark on there and all this will go to blessing him and his family even if you give online during the week as well um just just on the direct deposit just say pastor mark and uh or guest ministry whatever and uh that'll all go to blessing um him and his family this morning so i'll give you a couple of moments to fill that out um and then we'll go out with a prey song and and we're going to transform this room into a indoor playground in a few moments so i don't know who's over doing that yeah collect your rubbish yes do that um [Music] whoever's over it anyway we're going to need some help to who jason where's jason over there oh there you are hiding in the but now he's uh so give jason a hand so we're going to transform pack up the seats all that yeah jason's awesome oops um and uh and so do that then we're gonna bring in some jumping castles and lunch and all those types of things and uh which is gonna be great also if you are new or made a decision this morning um please come to our lounge before you go and we'd love to just hang out with you there also share some light refreshments plus you get a free lunch as well anyway um so before you go please come and see us um in the lounge when you head out into the foyer it's just on the left hand side there and our leaders and pastors are going to be there so please come and see us before you go all righty well let's pray this morning then we're going to take up the offering uh receive the offering and then we're going to have lunch heavenly father what an incredible word lord jesus i uh pray for pastor mark and his ministry i pray the best days are definitely still ahead lord god bless him bless his family bless his children his wife the whole family unit bless his ministry uh in moving forward as well we pray in jesus name never unsaid one more time amen thank you so much church and uh and what are the buckets come by and uh we're gonna take up that offering and then once it had that has happened i want you to stand to your feet we're gonna go out praising god and then we're going to have lunch and it's just going to be a great day all right god bless you have a wonderful week we love you all so much and we look forward to hanging out with you in a few moments [Music] our salvation is [Music] [Music] so don't let your heart break [Music] [Music] remember [Music] [Music] have a good day everyone stick around for family fun day we love you [Music] you