Shifting our perspective
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Introduction
Introduction
Change is in the air…can you sense it? I believe that what we are seeing in the natural with COVID19 and all that is happening around us serves as a prophetic picture of what God is busy doing in His Church at the moment. There is a shaking happening, there’s a shift happening, a falling away of things that are man-made and a revelation of things that are God ordained and eternal. There’s a re-positioning and a moving of people and people’s into place, into the place where God needs to them to be at this time for His purpose…so take heart!
I believe with all of my heart that what lies ahead of us is greater than where we have been, that the Church Of Jesus Christ’s finest hour is at hand, and I’ve felt God tug at my heart and asking me…Are you ready Jonathan, are you ready for what I am about to do in the earth?
Who would’ve thought beginning Feb that we’d be here today, that life would change in the way that it did. I remember when the lockdown stage/level 1 restrictins were first introduced, and we were informed that everyone will work from home, and that the kids will do remote learning from home…I remember looking at the 2 weekly work pack for each of my sons (grade 5 & 6) and thinking, I’m not sure how the remote learning thing is going to work, and more than that, that we’ll be able to cope (Helancia my wife and I ), because we were under no illusions, we know we’re not the homeschooling type…I bet the homeschoolers were quitely having a chuckle at our expense :)
The first week was a nightmare as our family adjusted to the new routine and schedule, with tensions running high and we’d have arguments over expectations to get things done at a certain time…we thought this going to be hard. Then in week 2 things improved - the boys started settling into a rythm and we got used to the routine, the work got done, but we still ended up reviewing some of the work on a Saturday morning, but we began to see the light. By week 4 the boys were really getting the hang of things…they actually got all their schoolwork done by Thursday’s and then we’d all relax on Friday’s. The there was the added benefits, which is I got to help Jordan my youngest son to use my recording studio equipment. I have a small studio setup at home with some recording software, and in his free time, he’d start recording short music tracks with audio of him singing, and I had the opportunity to give him some pointers, and even started teaching him how to sing in harmony. We started connection closer as a family, as we schedule downtime with family movie nights, etc. And it seems just as we hit our stride, just as we got the hang of remote-learning, the boys will be going back to school next week. Change…all this change
And then 2020 has been one crazy year…Australian Bushfires, Corona Virus, all the stuff happening in the US at the moment...Ahmed Abery, George Floyd…all this change, all this change...
And in the midst of this change, we can’t help but ask…Where exactly is God in all of this? Where is God, because it seems all hope is gone…America is in turmoil, with riots and violence and racial divides…where is God?
It seems things are falling apart and in my heart I’m crying out…GOD WHERE ARE YOU? DON’T YOU CARE??? Humanity is in turmoil…we need YOU!
And then it dawns on you as Holy Spirit gently spoke to my heart and said…”It’s a matter of perspective Jonathan”
And Holy Spirit continued to minister and He said you can have you perspective be informed by your physical senses, and be overwhelmed by what you see and hear and experience. Or you can have your perspective informed by heaven, and see My plan, see My hand at work to bring about good for you.
Pastor Phil nspired us last week with message on revival - that revival starts with us, and he qouted
And it will happen afterward thus: I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your elders will dream dreams; your young men shall see visions.
Joel saw a day when the people of God will speak what God says, they’ll see what God sees, we’ll perceive the thoughts of our Father - a people walking with heaven’s perspective, and who gives weight and manifestation, gives substance to “Let Your kingdom come, let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”
We need a shift in our perspectives…we need God’s perspective, we need our Father’s perspective.
And this perspective only comes by exercising our spiritual senses…
It’s the response Jesus gives Nicodemus in John 3
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night the bible says and asks Jesus if He is the Messiah, and Jesus tells him to be born again…what Jesus is in fact saying is Nicodemus, you’re trying to perceive spiritual truth with your physical senses and intellect…you need to perceive spiritual truth with spiritual senses - be born again first, come to life spiritually, and you’ll recognize who I AM!!! Nicodemus, your question reveals your perspective...
I can hear Jesus say Watch & pray with me, as he did the disciples in
Stay awake and pray that you will not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak!”
This is at a crucial time in Jesus’s life, significant change is about to take place, Jesus is about to be betrayed and taken and He asks his diciples to pray with Him. He’s telling them “stay awake and pray” i.e. be spiritually awake right now - see with your spiritual eyes, don’t fall asleep spiritually. You will fall into temptation if you’re not praying…why? If you’re not spiritually alert and awake right now i.e. watching and praying, then you will default to your own understanding, trust your own perspective informed by your circumstances, informed by your physical senses, and what is about to happen to Me won’t make sense to you, and your response will be a response of fear and anxiety and unbelief (ask Peter who denied Jesus) - you will not perceive God’s purpose in this moment of transition…you’ll miss it!
The author of Hebrews says it in another way in Heb 4:1-2 when he cautions his audience
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’ ” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.
The example of the church in Rome
The example of the church in Rome
The church in Rome has been under persecution for a sustained period of time, and they’re consoidering reverting back to Judaism the faith from which they came, because they’re exhausted, sustained persecution and hardship has exhausted them. At least if they revert to their former faith, they’ll have peace, no more persecution.
The church in Rome has a perspective based on what their circumstances are telling them, and they see the hopelessness of their situation.
But here’s God’s perspective, the eternal perspective…God is able to work all things together for our good, count it all joy, because God is working maturity in us, our faith is being refined like gold.
Victory will come in this life or the next if you perservere and hold to your faith in Jesus Christ, as Paul makes clear when He says “To Live is Christ, to die is Gain...”
The Example of Israel in the desert
The Example of Israel in the desert
The “They shall not enter my rest” is of course the Israelites whom the author of Hebrews is referring to, who through their unbelief and disobedience failed to enter into the rest of the promise land which is Canaan
In the Exodus account, God delivered the nation of Israel from the oppression of the Egyptians, but with the express purpose to lead them to the land that He promised to their forefather Abraham.
So the nation of Israel led by God with supernatural signs and wonders travels through the Red Sea which God parts, travel through the desert/wilderness where God supernaturally provides them with water and food until they get to the promised land where Moses sends 12 spies into Canaan to explore the land and report back with what they found.
So what happened? Perspective happened…10 spies came back and said:
Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there.
The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”
But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.”
And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.
10 spies had the perspective of slaves and expert desert dwellers, they had a perspective of fear and unbelief
Their response is grounded in what their circumstances are telling them…they’re not seeing with the eyes of faith and therefore were not able to enter into the rest of the promised land.
Unpack this a little…refer back to the scripture
Only 2 spies (Joshua & Caleb) came back and said:
Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”
2 spies had a perspective of promise land takers, they transitioned from a slave and desert dweller perspective to a faith filled God perspective.
This is what the author of Hebrews is saying…allow your hardship to work faith in you, allow your hardship to cause you to draw close to God, allow your perspective to be infused and influenced by God…don’t just go back and long for what has been, but be expectantly on the lookout for what God is wanting to do. And respond in obedient faith to what God is calling you to!
And as I pondered what Holy Spirirt was ministering to my heart, I still asked, show me where You are in all of what that is happening around us…and He said “You are the church” I said wait…wut? and He said again “You are the church”
1. We are the church
1. We are the church
You and me are the church, wherever we find ourselves that is where the church is, that is where God is…you ask where is God in all this, He is in His church, in you and in me! ALL ACROSS THE WORLD!!! This pandemic and subsequent isolation has aforded us the opportunity to learn that the church of God is not defined by 4 walls of a building on Sunday…as Pastor Phil shared last week, let’s not all allow a pandemic to go to waste…let’s observe and learn what God would teach us.
Now don’t for one second think that our Sunday gatherings are now redundant, that’s not what I am saying, we should not neglect the gathering of the saints as commanded in Heb 10:25
And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.
What I am saying is that a structure or building does not define our identity - we are the church of God each one of us. The church of God is and always have been the people...
Paul says we are ambassadors
And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.
For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.
So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
In biblical times when a nation invaded another nation, like the Babylonians did, like the Egyptians did, then typically what would happen they would first subdue that nation, and then uproot them from their homecountry and move them back to Babylon for example as slaves. But the Romans approached this differently, which is what Paul is alluding when he uses the work ambassador. Rome would instead of uprooting the people of the nation theu conquered, they would have the nation remain in the country, but then they would send a representative, and ambassador to govern this country and make it just like Rome!
As ambassadors we are to bring the kingdom of heaven, we are empowered by God to bring the kingdom of heaven into the areas of our own lives, but also into our spheres of influence and our relationships. Think about it, in both South Africa where I was born and Australia we drive our cars on the left side of the road…we play most the same sport, and the reson for that is that both countries were colonized by Great Britian.
This is the gist of Paul’s idea, we are represetatives of God as His church (you and me), empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring heaven into earth where we are. We have this ministry of reconciliation, facilitating, playing a part in reconciling people back to God!
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Christ in us the hope of glory…God’s glory, His mercy and grace will be on show for people to see in and through you and me, the church of God in the earth.
2. Church is God’s idea / Revival Is God’s idea
2. Church is God’s idea / Revival Is God’s idea
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.
When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.
3. It’s all about the harvest
3. It’s all about the harvest
It has always and will always be about the great commission
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
But in the busyness of church, of programs and facilties teams, for us its setup and packup, and the business of our daily routines at our jobs, families etc. we lose sight of this sometimes, and I believe God is using the pandemic, the fact that we can’t gather physically, the fact that we have to work from home to slow down the pace of life to see the world around us for what it is and what it has always been…broken. It is just now, we can’t switch the channel…we can’t ignore it with our busyness…
God is letting his church have a pause and look at the brokennes of humanity, of this world. And some of us are becoming uncomfortable because we’ve seen enough, let’s move on already…but like the injured man in the good Samaritan story, instead of turning a blind perhaps because of our indifference, we are being awakened to the things that break God’s heart again...
And as tragic and unjust and wrong George Floyd’s death was, I belive, God is simply allowing us to see the brokennes…where is the brokennes where you live, where is the hurting where you live...
This is our field of harvest, this is where we need to be the voice of God’s love and grace and mercy for the oppressed, for the needy, for the broken, for the marginilized.
“No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people.
Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.