Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Crema Chaj podcast.
[00:00:08] Sue and I do not take it for granted, the way we're welcomed and treated in this.
[00:00:13] In this house. And it's very fun to have Michael and Diane here. And I'll mention it in a moment. I think there's. I do believe there's a prophetic significance to this weekend.
[00:00:27] How well I articulate that, I guess we'll find out.
[00:00:33] So, a couple of quick announcements. One, how many of you here are on Strengthen?
[00:00:40] Okay, if you're not on Strengthen, look around at any of these people with their hands raised that put them down way too quickly.
[00:00:49] And if you're a couple in leadership and you want to be strengthened in your mind leadership, your relationship as a couple, grab one of them and talk to them and let them tell you what Strengthen is. But it's basically four midweek weekends in a nice hotel in Stratford where, although we have speakers and teachers, the number one goal is relational connection with brothers and sisters who are leading churches. And I am so grateful that these crazy guys, we're a part of that. So if you're interested, applications are open for next year, but without advertising. We have eight couples already. So if you're interested, no pressure, but.
[00:01:36] And I honestly think it's one of the. Probably one of the best things I've ever done, actually, which is kind of crazy. I've done a few things I think are okay, but I really, I feel like we're in a season of learning how to do relationship with each other.
[00:01:51] And it's the greatest need on planet earth right now is healthy relationships with each other. Second, quick announcement. I finally put together my coaching manual, which is I used to do it and call it Whiteboard coaching. I still do do it with a whiteboard, but I changed the name of it.
[00:02:10] I still think Whiteboard coaching was a good title, but it wouldn't mean anything on a cover.
[00:02:15] But it's really helping people, coaching people to live life knowing that he wastes nothing. That's really what it's all about, this man. You can use it to coach yourself or to learn to be a coach. It's very practical. You can walk through it step by step. It's on Amazon, if you're interested, called Restore Coaching. And that's that piece of me announcing me. And it's why I've just recruited somebody to do my marketing newsletters and social media. Because I said to sue the beginning of this week, I can't do that.
[00:02:49] And I'm okay up here doing it, but I can't be doing that. So I'm moving into a new season of that.
[00:02:59] I just wanted to read something prophetic word and I've got a couple of sort of introductory places to go. But I passionately believe and I'm incredibly grateful for the prophetic.
[00:03:15] I have no words to be honest. I mean I actually was smiling to myself earlier, Steve, when you said I'm not a stadium preacher.
[00:03:22] I said that once in a meeting and then Mario Murillo told me to stand up and he said, paul, you're going to preach in stadiums, so watch out Steve.
[00:03:34] That's all I can say. But I love the prophetic. Well, because the prophetic empowered me to walk on a stadium that in the natural I wasn't qualified to do, but in the spiritual I was qualified to do it because the prophetic will qualify you to do what you're not qualified to do in the natural.
[00:03:53] Did you get that?
[00:03:56] I thought it was quite good the way I said it. I was quite pleased with myself. It will, but we went to bethel 25 years ago actually this week. It's the anniversary, 25th anniversary of us jumping on a plane with a 13 year old son.
[00:04:11] And as we ran to the plane four days after 9 11, our 13 year old son looked at the jumbo and said it's just as well he weren't flying one of those into the twin Towers. Like thanks son. That's really encouraging when we're about to get on a plane. But so began the beginning of the most extraordinary adventure of our lives for which I and sue and I have absolutely no regrets. But a few years after that, not even 10 years after arriving there, we were given this word as pioneers. You're about to shape the destiny of a nation just like the Wild West. Pioneers in the wagons forging a path across America to a land filled with gold. You have and are about to do the same for the nation of England. In time, your discoveries will help to forge ports of refuge, safety and commerce within the kingdom. Settlers will arrive and take up their place in the forts and strongholds of the Lord. Your obedience has opened the door for the settlers to take the land. In the nation of England, a future time will come when when the call to return will be ringing loud to help pastor a nation. You will know when because the call will coincide with you being sent by the fathers of this house. Favor will follow you to make the transition easy. And we came home 10 years ago this year.
[00:05:27] And I just feel like we are just beginning to step into that prophetic word. And partnering people like Steve and Juliet and beginning to talk about church planting in this nation and other things.
[00:05:41] And, you know, I just believe it's now.
[00:05:45] I believe we're stepping into that time. I don't believe it's about sue and I, although we're a part of it, you know, and it really is our time.
[00:05:55] It's our time as a nation.
[00:05:57] It's our time.
[00:06:02] It is our time.
[00:06:04] And I wrote to Steve and Juliet about six or eight weeks ago, I think, and I texted them this.
[00:06:16] I have a growing word for the leaders gathering. I was just chatting it through with sue for a minute, and it's to do with a pendulum. But I also recalled something, and then I texted Bill because I wanted to check my accuracy.
[00:06:31] And sometime in the late 90s, about, I think probably 98 or 99, Bill went to an event. It was either Sacramento or San Francisco.
[00:06:43] He didn't confirm that in the text he gave me back. And he went down there, and there was a prophet lady there, and she gave him a word. And the word was that God is raising up a city, the first city that will be in revival.
[00:07:00] And when it's raised up, it will have a domino effect across the nation.
[00:07:04] And she said, that city is reading now. That word then came with the it is not a race against other people. It is a race against time.
[00:07:17] Four weeks ago, I remembered that word, and I felt the Lord said, that was us, this land.
[00:07:24] Now, I don't know how you measure that. I just know that in my heart, I believe it's our time and that God is doing a work in this land.
[00:07:36] And it's not a race against anyone else. It's definitely not a race against the usa. And I will forever be grateful for my spiritual fathers and mothers in the usa. I will forever want them, like Michael and Diane, to come over here and add their strength to our strength. Without any shadow of a doubt. I want that.
[00:07:56] But I also believe it's time for us to stand up and to take this moment in time that the Lord has entrusted us with.
[00:08:09] And what I want to talk to you about is really this. I believe it's time to swing the pendulum.
[00:08:17] To swing the pendulum out of status quo.
[00:08:21] How many of you have been to a Toronto, a Bethel, a Lakeland, a Vineyard, an Anaheim, any of those meetings or any of those places you see, you went there to shake the status quo in your life.
[00:08:43] You heard that something was happening, and you had to go there.
[00:08:49] And I believe that this is a moment in time, a moment when we need to decide we are going to change something.
[00:09:01] Whether it is in my personal life, my relational life, my ministry life, or something broader. It is a moment when we have to shake the status quo.
[00:09:14] See, one of the problems, I think, of a lot of what we find ourselves doing is that we've got to learn how to create a culture which is able to embrace what happens when you swing the pendulum.
[00:09:36] Because often what happens, you swing the pendulum, and there's a whole load of backlash and opposition that comes.
[00:09:43] And what we've got to learn to do, I believe, is to bravely and boldly decide I'm going to change that and change it in such a way that the culture that surrounds it is able to sustain, as it were, the swinging pendulum.
[00:10:01] Does that make sense?
[00:10:03] And that means that what we need to do is to, I think, shift some things in our thinking. And that's what I want to run through with you. Before I do that, I just want to talk a little bit about some aspects of revival.
[00:10:23] Steve and I both have Bibles that open beautifully.
[00:10:27] It's my favorite thing, is a book that opens properly and you don't have to kind of like grapple with it. Habakkuk, chapter three. Why don't you stand up?
[00:10:41] Because in this house, standing up for the reading of the Word isn't religion. It's honor.
[00:10:47] It's honor for this most beautiful, stunning, powerful book. And. And I love that there's a generation that like paper Bibles all over again.
[00:10:56] I have to say this. If I was in charge of a small group, I would not allow you to have a digital Bible on your phone.
[00:11:03] Do you know why I wouldn't? Because if you're on your phone, I don't think you're paying attention to me.
[00:11:09] My psyche now is you're on your phone doing something else.
[00:11:14] And you might not be, but my head says you are. And that means you don't get all of me. Cause half of me is trying to work out what you might be doing.
[00:11:22] So let's get the paper Bibles back. That smell.
[00:11:27] Chapter three, A Prayer of Habakkuk the Prophet according to Shigionath. Lord, I have heard the report about you, and I fear.
[00:11:38] I'm not talking about it. I talked about it last night. If you weren't there, I have no idea if it was recorded. But I do believe there's a theme of the fear of the Lord this week.
[00:11:48] I believe there is. I have heard the report about you, and I fear, O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years.
[00:12:00] In the midst of the years. Make it known in wrath.
[00:12:05] Remember mercy.
[00:12:08] You may be seated. What does the midst of the years mean to you?
[00:12:13] For me, as I read it, I think the midst of the years sounds like to me there's not a great deal going on.
[00:12:21] There's not anniversaries, there's not celebrations. There's not huge gatherings. There's not a whole lot going on that I can give a name to. So we're in the midst of the years, but in the midst of those times, would you revive your work?
[00:12:39] Revive us again?
[00:12:42] What does that mean? It means change something.
[00:12:46] It means shift something.
[00:12:50] I have in my notes and scribbled in my margin, types of revival.
[00:12:57] Repentance revivals. There have been repentance revivals. It's the shifting something. Shifting. People aware of sin.
[00:13:08] One of those, maybe one of the great ones of those is the communion revival up there in Scotland, somewhere between Glasgow and Edinburgh, about halfway in between the two, there in a preaching kind of natural bowl, Whitfield stood a pulpit.
[00:13:30] It's called the Communion revival because back in those days, you couldn't take communion if you hadn't got your communion token from the priest at the church who would confirm that you were attending and therefore you qualified to take communion. And there was a communion revival because there was a sound went out that said, you need to repent. Come and take communion. And tens of thousands of people in the middle of the night made a journey to that place there. And they could hear the cries, the wailing of men and women repenting. It was a repentance communion revival.
[00:14:06] There have been revivals of evangelism. I think probably Brownsville would be in that category with what, 2 million from Father's Day, 1995, when God shook something that day.
[00:14:20] There have been worship revivals, deeper life revivals, spiritual warfare revivals, Holy Spirit revivals, reconciliation revivals, liberation revivals, prayer revivals, and more recently, the Wesleyan Revival and the Jesus People revival.
[00:14:44] Pre Wesley, the Church of England was dead. There was alcohol abuse at the highest level.
[00:14:50] There was gangs who were dominating society. And it was impossible for the enforcement of law.
[00:14:59] That was the culture. You think we've got something bad now? I just think it's amidst of years which is crying out, revive us again and pre Jesus people. Which Michael is much more qualified to talk about than I, and I hope he does.
[00:15:15] But pre Jesus people, if you haven't seen Jesus Revolution, you owe yourself an evening sitting watching that movie. Because if it doesn't stir you, you might Just need to go and see a doctor and check you're still alive.
[00:15:29] There was anti war culture in America.
[00:15:33] There was the threat of nuclear problems. There were three assassinations. The church was in decline. There was a rebellion against the establishment. There was a moral decline. And there was the denigration of law enforcement. And then the Jesus people movement began.
[00:15:54] See, we shouldn't be worried about the state of our world. We should be crying out that he would come and shake us again.
[00:16:03] Revive your work in the midst of years.
[00:16:06] And I believe that what this weekend is about is a challenge to each one of us to decide on an area of our lives where we will choose to swing the pendulum.
[00:16:18] Why do I use the pendulum as an illustration? Well, you know, it's very simple.
[00:16:25] You have to.
[00:16:26] They made me one. Quickly here. See, that thing won't move unless you move it away from the equilibrium, the status quo.
[00:16:37] You might be in your church right now and go, nothing's happening. No, nothing will happen until you move something.
[00:16:45] Until you hear what Steve's saying. Go back to your church and say, who's here? Who wants to plant a church?
[00:16:51] You only need one, just one person who says, that's me. And all of a sudden you've shifted from status quo to something's moving.
[00:17:04] It might be. You see what we all did when we went to these events to wherever from. For me, I went to Pensacola. I went to Argentina in 1997.
[00:17:15] I was privileged to get to go on that trip.
[00:17:19] What happened?
[00:17:20] The pendulum in my life started swinging.
[00:17:23] The status quo was changed. I remember when sue and I went to a church meeting where Randy Clark was speaking in 1995, and we knew we'll never be the same again.
[00:17:38] We just knew something's changed and we'll never be the same again.
[00:17:44] And I just have this really strong sense that we've got to make decisions about our lives and go, okay, I'm willing this weekend to swing the pendulum. What does that look like? Yeah, it could be church planting. It could be knowing that I'm meant to be in ministry. I'm meant to be doing this. I'm meant to be sent there.
[00:18:03] It might be something in your personal life, your personal relationship with the Lord. It might be in your marriage.
[00:18:10] Maybe your marriage has got a bit stable. And it's equilibrium, it's like, change it. Swing the pendulum, change something.
[00:18:19] And then I think what we have to learn to do, which I'm going to try and go through a little bit, is we've got to learn to keep the pendulum Swinging.
[00:18:28] Because the problem sometimes comes that we swing the pendulum and we create another routine.
[00:18:34] And we think that we've created something and yet we've just stepped into another place of routine.
[00:18:43] So I just want to challenge you now. There is the church planting challenge. And I felt it right now in my heart. My cry is this, Lord, I'll do that.
[00:18:57] But I kind of hearing him say, I'm not telling you to right now. And I'm like, could you tell me to do that? Because I think I'd quite like to do that. Like I'd really willing to do that.
[00:19:08] It's like, no, he's not saying it, so that's okay.
[00:19:14] But I got hold of something from two places in the last week. I'd not seen it before.
[00:19:19] They're not here. But there's a couple called Ben and Rachel.
[00:19:23] They're Indian couple. They're beautiful, beautiful couple. And they invite us to go and speak at their 10th church anniversary last weekend. Saturday night, we went and spoke. We were the only white guys in the room.
[00:19:38] I don't think I remember being more at home anywhere.
[00:19:43] I'm not making it up. I'm not like I stood on the door welcoming people coming to their 10th anniversary. I'd never been there before. I just felt at home. I'm standing there saying, I, hi, you know, welcome might have seemed a bit weird, but I changed my message. I felt at home.
[00:20:00] I looked out across the room, I saw 100 faces that were all a different color to my skin.
[00:20:07] And I'm looking at and I'm thinking, there's a seed in here of revival in this land.
[00:20:13] Because if this church started sending out individuals who planted house churches in the Indian communities of our land, I started seeing what Heidi Baker sees in Mozambique of hundreds and thousands of churches, of grabbing the most recently saved person who comes into that church. And I just saw it last Saturday night because I think up until then I was thinking, well, you need to plant hillsong in every city and you know, thousand seater stadium type events, you know.
[00:20:44] No.
[00:20:46] So when Steve's speaking now, I'm like, I got it, Steve. I got the message. You're right. It's right. It's now.
[00:20:52] So I believe it's time for each one of us now. For some of you, it will be church planting.
[00:20:57] There are church planters in here and you've stood up.
[00:21:04] But for others of you, it might be something completely different.
[00:21:09] You might just be in the status quo. Life might have become stale, a bit dull, a bit boring, and you just need to do something to wake it up, to shake it up.
[00:21:29] See, that's really what Habakkuk's saying.
[00:21:32] That's what all these revivals are.
[00:21:34] It's God breaking into the midst of the years. It's God breaking into the mundane, to the status quo.
[00:21:42] It's what the Bible's full of, the stories when God shows up and changes things and breaks in.
[00:21:51] But the problem is, I don't think we do a very good job at sustaining. And I just want to run through some things. I see how far I get.
[00:22:02] But I think what we've got to learn to do is to create a mindset that sustains the pendulum swinging.
[00:22:09] Because the pressures of our people, our congregation, of society, will, if we're not careful, cause that pendulum to stop swinging.
[00:22:21] See, how does the pendulum swing in the clock? It keeps swinging in the clock because you wind the clock up and you keep the tension in the clockwork motor. And so the clockwork motor keeps this pendulum swinging, as it were.
[00:22:39] I have a whole message on tension.
[00:22:41] I passionately believe that the kingdom is about maintaining divine tension.
[00:22:50] The tension between heaven and earth, the tension between today and my prophetic future, the tension between me and people that I walk alongside with as brothers and sisters in Christ.
[00:23:04] But I don't agree with their detail of their theology or their doctrine.
[00:23:10] And the tension of living in mystery and not knowing all the answers.
[00:23:15] For me, those are the four primary tensions. The tension between heaven and earth. Anyone prayed for something and not seen it happen?
[00:23:23] Only a few of you. Well, the rest of you need to pray for me.
[00:23:28] What happens when you pray and you pray for somebody to be healed?
[00:23:33] The book says he heals all our diseases and that person isn't healed. What do we do? Throw the book away? No, we keep the tension alive.
[00:23:43] If you pray for somebody and they don't get healed, it should cause you to pull on heaven even harder next time you face the same scenario.
[00:23:54] Keeping the tension, keeping the clock wound up.
[00:24:01] So much of criticism of a lot of the charismatic movement right now, I think, is to try and destroy the tension, to cause us to stop keeping the tension alive. For people to say, look, he didn't heal.
[00:24:16] Why are you praying for someone else? He didn't heal last time. No, but he says in his book, he heals.
[00:24:27] See, the apostolic heaven to earth tension.
[00:24:31] We have to keep it alive, which means we live in the middle of it. We live in the place of tension in between heaven and earth, pulling heaven to earth, fulfilling the prayer of Jesus on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:24:47] And the prophetic, it's the same.
[00:24:51] If your prophetic word hasn't come to pass, it's so tempting for people to start saying those prophetic words. It's not for today. God doesn't speak today.
[00:25:02] And so we end up shutting down the prophetic instead of keeping the prophetic alive going. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm going to pull tomorrow into today even harder, keeping the tension alive so that that pendulum keeps on swinging.
[00:25:26] Keeps us out of the status quo, keeps us out of the mundane, keeps us out, as it were, of the midst of the years.
[00:25:37] And there are those who want to shut down mystery.
[00:25:40] I love the word of God and I love theology, but I get so frustrated when.
[00:25:45] When theology shuts down the power of God, the move of the Spirit, when it robs God, as it were, of permission to do whatever he pleases, as the psalmist says.
[00:26:01] One of the greatest gifts that I think I ever received.
[00:26:06] In Bethel Church, it was Sunday Morning in January 2004, and Bill's father was dying of cancer.
[00:26:20] And we're in a church where every week we say, God's good.
[00:26:23] And Bill walked in the week before Earl passed, and he said, my paraphrase, God is good, and my father is dying of cancer.
[00:26:37] But I will not sacrifice the revelation of his goodness on the altar of human reasoning to give myself an answer to a mystery I am not qualified to understand mystery. He gave me permission to have mystery, to say, I don't know.
[00:26:55] I don't know.
[00:26:56] We had somebody in our life group. Some of my friends from our church in Windsor are here. And, you know, we watched somebody not get their miracle this last year, just a few months ago.
[00:27:11] And the temptation is for people say, why do you think? Why did that person not get their miracle? And we start to make up ideas. Well, maybe it was this. Maybe it was something in their family line, maybe it was a sin. Maybe it was something they kept on eating or something like that, you know, and social media is full of all these theories and. But the real answer is, I don't know.
[00:27:35] And it keeps the clock wound up because he's God.
[00:27:44] And the relational tension, so much of the division and the polarization that we see all the time in social media especially, is causing division, division, division.
[00:28:02] He's coming back for one bride.
[00:28:05] I don't know whether you know that.
[00:28:07] You don't? No, he's coming back for one bride. The last time I checked, he's not coming back for a harem. He's not Coming back for a prostitute. He's coming back for a pure, spotless bride. One pure, spotless bride.
[00:28:20] That means we got to get united.
[00:28:22] That means we got to learn how to walk together instead of dividing. And you see, when we divide, oh, the pendulum stops swinging and the clockwork motor isn't wound up with the tension, the beautiful tension of walking in relationship with brothers and sisters that we might not completely agree with, but we know that they say Jesus is Lord, and the closer you get to the front line of the battle, the less your differences matter.
[00:28:57] I believe it passionately.
[00:28:59] I'm trained as a riot commander, believe it or not.
[00:29:02] I don't quite know how that happened, but I am.
[00:29:05] I can tell you this. When I'm in that team, and I've got three long shields and I'm one of those, and I've got three short shields over the back of me, and I got two rows of guys behind me, and I'm walking into a riot situation and I've got petrol bombs being thrown at me. And I really have done this training.
[00:29:22] I know I'm a littleish guy, but I've done this stuff. I can tell you this. I don't care how he was baptized. I don't care how he takes communion. I just want to know, do you speak to the big guy and does he talk back to you? Let's go.
[00:29:39] We've got to keep that tension alive.
[00:29:42] Relational tension, the tension of mystery, the apostolic heaven to earth tension, and the tension of the prophetic, because tension releases energy, and energy creates movement and movement creates life.
[00:30:03] It's divine tension.
[00:30:06] You know, the interesting thing is, I think if you were an atheist and I came up to you and said, design me a God, I'm pretty sure that an atheist would say they'd live in a better place, they'd know the future, they'd know stuff that we don't know, and they'd walk in perfection of relationship.
[00:30:29] Do you agree with me?
[00:30:31] You see, the very things that Christians sometimes question, can we really bring heaven to earth? Does God really speak today?
[00:30:40] Shouldn't we know all the answers?
[00:30:44] Shouldn't everybody believe exactly the same thing?
[00:30:47] No. The very things that we often divide over are the very things that I think atheists would expect God to have.
[00:30:57] So we got to learn how to keep that pendulum swinging. If that illustration works for you.
[00:31:04] Let me give you just a few thoughts, mindset thoughts, if that's okay.
[00:31:09] One of the things I love about what Steve's saying about church flying is we don't really Care what denomination you do it under.
[00:31:18] That's really not the issue. Let's just get this job done.
[00:31:23] Yeah.
[00:31:25] So, number one, I think this has become really more and more important.
[00:31:31] But we need to learn to think for ourselves.
[00:31:34] We got too much crowd thinking in our world today, too much pressure.
[00:31:41] We need to learn to think for ourselves.
[00:31:45] One of the things I always appreciated so much and still do about Bill Johnson, he would bring speakers to a conference because he wanted something from them. He saw an anointing on them, but he didn't necessarily agree with everything.
[00:32:00] And his goal was this. To train us to eat the meat and spit out the bones.
[00:32:05] Now, the crazy thing is that then you end up criticized for that because people don't understand the mindset behind what's happening.
[00:32:13] You see, we need people who think for themselves. You're going to go and church plant. Learn to think for yourself.
[00:32:19] Because in a very short period of time, somebody's going to come to you with a question and Steve won't be there to answer it for you.
[00:32:26] You've got to learn to think for yourself. Now, you gather people that are going to help you in the early stages of what you're building. But the goal is think for yourself. You see, the world is increasingly tell us how to think.
[00:32:43] We gotta learn to think for ourselves. And too many of us actually have been raised to almost believe that we can't be trusted to think for ourselves.
[00:32:53] But you see, thinking for ourselves is part of keeping that pendulum swinging, is keeping it alive, not shutting it down because of other people's pressure. You see, we are going to be given an assignment.
[00:33:07] If I can put it this way, I haven't thought through the way the whole illustration works. But if my assignment is this pendulum, my job is to keep this pendulum swinging. I've got to learn to think for myself in how I keep my pendulum, my assignment, swinging. I've got to think for myself how I keep it alive.
[00:33:29] Think for yourself.
[00:33:31] Number two. Disagreement is necessary.
[00:33:34] Disagreeable is unacceptable.
[00:33:38] It's a mindset.
[00:33:43] I think we've got to learn how to do this.
[00:33:46] We really have. It's part of what I think is happening with what we're doing with strengthen. It's part of what I'm growing in, is sitting with leaders and telling it the way it is, speaking truth.
[00:34:04] Because disagreement challenge difficult conversations. They are necessary.
[00:34:12] But disagreeable is completely and utterly unacceptable.
[00:34:17] So we've got to learn that. There's a beautiful verse and I love it. And it says in Proverbs, lost the number I think it's 1912, but I've probably got the verse wrong.
[00:34:31] But confidence comes from the fear of the Lord.
[00:34:36] See, when we get the fear of the Lord, we get the confidence to bring the difficult conversation, to bring the challenge, to risk disagreement. But we do it in such a way that it's not disagreeable. You see so much of the world around us, it's got this, I'm right, you're wrong.
[00:34:57] Have you noticed John has in Northern Ireland, they're the only place. No.
[00:35:05] Haven't you noticed?
[00:35:07] It's become so black and white, so arrogant.
[00:35:11] I'm right, you're wrong. And there's no room for a discussion.
[00:35:15] Nuance is dead, it seems.
[00:35:20] But if we're to take our assignment and we've gone into a place or a location and we've started swinging that pendulum. And we saw it, didn't we? We saw it in Toronto. That pendulum was swinging and the critics were saying, you know, this, that, and the other about it. They're barking like dogs, mooing like cows, clucking like hens. It's craziness. And yet what so many of us saw, that people were hitting the deck under the power of God, and whatever noise they made, they were.
[00:35:50] And some of them became world changers and influences in ways that nobody had ever imagined. People like Heidi Baker and Leif Hetland, who, under the power of God in that environment, you see, if that pendulum had stopped swinging, that work of God would have stopped.
[00:36:11] And this polarization, this I'm right, you're wrong. It's like, no, we've got to get back to being able to have healthy conversations, to have disagree.
[00:36:23] I think one of the deficits in my life. My wife will probably confirm this.
[00:36:27] I don't really like those kind of conversations. But as I look back, I didn't have a brother, and I had a pretty dysfunctional sister. I never learned to have a fight at tea time and go to bed hugging my brother.
[00:36:39] It was never part of my life.
[00:36:42] See, we need to be trained as we're growing up and learn these relational dynamics.
[00:36:50] But if we haven't, maybe we just need to change the way we think. Now, unity is not equality or conformity.
[00:37:01] The lie is I have to agree to be united. No, you don't.
[00:37:06] No, you don't.
[00:37:08] See, the problem is we got too many eyes on other people's views and opinions, and we've lost sight of the real goal.
[00:37:17] And the real goal is out there. It's to honor Jesus.
[00:37:22] I have spoken. I don't know if anyone else has. I'm sure, Michael, you probably have. I'm sure I've spoken at Catholic conferences. They're fun.
[00:37:31] I can assure you this.
[00:37:33] I don't have an exchange of emails beforehand and check out, you know, whether I'm going to be embarrassed by the way they do communion, whether I'm going to be expected to swing some incense around or go to confession or any of that stuff.
[00:37:48] And I find myself walking into rooms very much like this with incredible worship and men and women who love Jesus Christ with all their hearts, who are praying for the sick and seeing them healed.
[00:38:01] It's beautiful.
[00:38:03] It's really, really beautiful.
[00:38:06] And then you can talk to somebody and share an opinion or dump it on your social media page. And they go, yeah, well they're this and they're that and they pray to Mary and they do this and it's like, yeah, you should have been in the room.
[00:38:23] We don't have to agree.
[00:38:25] We just got to learn to walk united.
[00:38:28] See, we've got to learn to keep the tension alive. Because when we keep the tension alive, the pendulum keeps on swinging. When the pendulum keeps on swinging, we stay on assignment and we don't go back to an old status quo.
[00:38:45] Risk.
[00:38:50] Is something about risk that is so essential to life.
[00:39:00] And the problem is that kind of ending up in a bit of a risk averse world.
[00:39:06] And there are a few crazy entrepreneurs and a few crazy revivalists out there who still take risks. But a lot of us have ended up in this kind of risk averse world and we're afraid of upsetting somebody or anything like that. But risk extends to every area of life.
[00:39:24] I mean, I took a risk. Well, sue took more of a risk. But when we got married, there's a risk, wasn't it?
[00:39:32] It's not guaranteed. And you've got to work it out.
[00:39:36] There's something about risk.
[00:39:40] I also personally, this is a little weird parallel, but I actually believe that there is a parallel between the spirit of entrepreneur and the spirit of revival.
[00:39:52] You only got to look at the west coast of California for the last hundred years and you'll find Hewlett Packard, Boeing, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, a whole load more. And in the same stretch of land you will find Jesus people, movement, the four square movement, Bethel, you will find vineyard, you will find the revival. And I think what was meant to happen was the two were meant to meet and co labor together for the kingdom. Because I think there's a spirit that is related between the two of them and it's something to do with risk. And the truth is, as the great John Wimber said, faith is spelt R I S K. It is essential for life. And you see, there are people who will say, you need to shut down the risk. You shouldn't be taking those kind of risks. And when you do that, the pendulum stops swinging.
[00:40:47] We gotta keep the risk alive.
[00:40:53] Culture's king.
[00:40:55] There's a world that says that rule keeping is king, but actually culture is really the king. And for me, culture is the nature of heaven. It's bringing the nature of heaven, the way of heaven to earth.
[00:41:08] I think one of the things that sue and I noticed most when we moved back from the States after being there for 15 years was we had created and it had created in us a mindset that we were looking for what God is doing, not what he isn't doing. We were looking for what was right and, and not was what was wrong. And something had changed in us because we'd been in a culture of the goodness of God, we'd been saturated in it. And there was an expectation that in whatever's happening, God is in there. Look at what he's doing, look at what is right.
[00:41:42] And you see the culture is king. Because the rule book will have you looking at what is wrong and it will limit you because you'll line yourself up with a rule book instead of line yourself up with bringing the culture of, of heaven. And it is the culture of heaven that will actually give us the ability and the power and the permission to live lives that take risks.
[00:42:06] And I could go through a whole bunch of cultures, but I won't. Revelation is risky, but it's revealing. Of course it is. It's Revelation.
[00:42:17] I read this book expecting him to reveal himself.
[00:42:23] I'm not expecting, you know, I'm not going to get the, you know, the download so that I become the leader of the next weird cult. No, I'm looking for him to reveal himself, for Jesus Christ to reveal himself through the word of God. That's the revelation I am looking for. It's risky. Of course it's risky. When you stand up and you say, I read this in the Bible and I want to share it with you. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody say it before. I remember when I stood up in Bethel and I said, it wasn't being in the volcanic eruption on the top of the mountain that caused Maes face to shine, it was being exposed to his goodness.
[00:43:05] Now, I don't know whether anyone has said that before me. I'd just never seen it. I remember saying it.
[00:43:12] And you can check the book. It's the third trip up the mountain. When Moses said, show me your glory. And God said I'll show my goodness. And, and Moses goes up the mountain. That's when his face shone, when he was exposed to the goodness of God. That's what caused his face to shine. But I remember being scared, being nervous that I'm sharing this.
[00:43:33] It is risky.
[00:43:36] But you see, we've got a world that says risk is related to failure.
[00:43:40] If you risk, you're going to fail. No, if you don't risk, you'll never succeed.
[00:43:45] You'll never see the breakthrough.
[00:43:47] Church planters. If you don't risk it, it will never happen.
[00:43:52] If we'd never got on a plane on 15th September 2001 with two suitcases each, a one year visa, enough money to live for three years left, an 18 year old in university in this country and a 13 year old holding a hand telling us that it would make a bigger mess if a jumbo hit a building.
[00:44:11] If we'd never done that, I'd be dead.
[00:44:17] I would. I would not have been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
[00:44:21] And that's only one of a thousand things that the greatest risk by the most courageous woman that I'll ever know opened up a life that I never dreamed.
[00:44:36] And it's not about me.
[00:44:40] If you don't risk, you'll never see it. I know some of you in here are entrepreneurs who take risks and some of your risks scare me. But that's okay.
[00:44:49] We need you.
[00:44:52] We declare before we see.
[00:44:56] Oh, how much we get criticized for this. You're declaring something before you see. I don't know whether you realize this, but the Jesus that you walked to the front of a church for and gave your life to, you can't see him.
[00:45:09] You believe in one you cannot see. The nature of our faith is that we cannot see it. And therefore we declare before we see.
[00:45:18] We declare revival in this land before we see means nothing to declare it afterwards. I declare a Jesus people movement in the late 1960s in California. Big deal.
[00:45:31] I declare a new Jesus people movement on the campuses and the universities of this country where thousands of people run to front of churches. That's a declaration. That's believing before I see it. We declare before we see. But the world and the critics of our movement would say, oh no, you have to see it and then believe.
[00:45:54] No.
[00:45:56] Hope and joy are foundational cultures.
[00:46:00] They are fundamental. Read the book, especially Paul Hope.
[00:46:09] The proverb says hope Deferred makes the heart sick.
[00:46:14] But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
[00:46:17] It's not that you don't get what you hope for that makes you sick. I want to tell you. Do you know this?
[00:46:23] It's stop hoping that makes you sick.
[00:46:27] Nobody gets sick when they don't get what they hope for. It's the people who stop hoping. And there is medical evidence. There are clinical reviews that have been done about the power of hope in cancer wards.
[00:46:41] Joy and hope are essential. But the world would tell us that my emotions are dependent on my circumstances. They are not.
[00:46:53] I know it's joy and peace, but I love Bill's definition. Joy is noisy peace, and peace is quiet joy.
[00:47:00] I love that.
[00:47:02] I love that because that gives permission for some of us that are a bit quieter, you know, My peace is my joy. My joy is my peace.
[00:47:12] We're not dependent on circumstances, you see? You see, if we're dependent on circumstances, we end up. We stop swinging the pendulum because we're not hoping. We're not releasing joy into situations before we can see them. Does this make sense, this illustration of swinging a pendulum? We got to keep it swinging and hope and joy and risk and declaring before we see they keep it swinging.
[00:47:37] We're always learning.
[00:47:40] There is no pass mark for the Christian life. That is a great relief.
[00:47:45] We're always learning.
[00:47:47] We are the greatest learning organization there ever has been and ever will be.
[00:47:53] And that learning comes through honor.
[00:47:56] Because when you honor, you go from glory to glory. And you will never run out of people to honor. And when you honor, you learn from them. When I sit at the feet of a church planter, I learn.
[00:48:08] But if I walk up to a church planner and treat him as though I know everything, I will never learn from him. And honor. Before honor comes humility. But pride comes before dishonor.
[00:48:21] We are a learning organization, and we learn by honor. We learn by recognizing the Jesus in each other. We learn by recognizing the glory in each other.
[00:48:34] But there's a world out there that says that there's a pass mark. And you can get to a point where you know all you need. You never will.
[00:48:41] I've mentioned this in another way. It's the work of God. Don't work it out.
[00:48:47] But the world says, no mysteries allowed.
[00:48:51] We need to learn to live inclusive first, not exclusive first.
[00:48:56] We can have within the inclusive our views, but our mindset must be inclusive first.
[00:49:04] Because Jesus said in John 3:16, For God so loved the world, and I'm pretty sure when he said it, he would have Said this for God so loved the world that he sent me.
[00:49:14] Fortunately, it's not in the Bible that way. Otherwise it would be really awkward when we read it.
[00:49:18] But what he was saying was, God so loved the world.
[00:49:22] The world.
[00:49:23] It's an inclusive assignment now, within that, we can have our exclusive views, but we need inclusive first. We need to know that this faith is for everybody because Jesus died for all.
[00:49:44] And we need to learn empowering leadership.
[00:49:49] We need to learn this because it keeps the pendulum swinging. You see, Jesus didn't take 12 and make sure that they had got everything absolutely 100% correct before he empowered them.
[00:50:05] He didn't do that.
[00:50:07] In fact, he had a really not very good success rate. You know, he had 5 out of 12 didn't do so good.
[00:50:16] He had a betrayer, a denier, a doubter, and a couple of guys who kept arguing about who was the greatest. That's five. Some of you would quit ministry on that.
[00:50:29] But he created an empowering culture because he knew you have to create that culture in order to raise up those other seven and in order to create an environment where Thomas can come back and believe and Peter can be forgiven and say that I love you, and the two brothers can go on to greatness, he knew he had to do that.
[00:50:53] See, my challenge to you is, where is the area of your life today where you need to risk swinging the pendulum?
[00:51:05] What is that?
[00:51:10] I'll say it here.
[00:51:14] I said it last night. I say it humbly, but kind of humbly. I don't know how you say it and say it's humbly and not sound that you're not being humble, but whatever.
[00:51:24] A year ago, I started writing a letter to sue every Saturday because of what Erica Kirk had said at her memorial service.
[00:51:31] I swung a pendulum that day because I saw an example of something that shook me and I knew I had to keep it going.
[00:51:43] Now, guys, that might not be for you. That's fine. Find another way of doing it.
[00:51:50] Just find another way of doing it. Maybe your kitchen must never not have flowers in it that you buy for your wife. I don't know. It doesn't matter what it is. But something that shakes out of the status quo in that area of your life, it might be ministry, it might be church planting. It might be praying for the sick.
[00:52:07] You see, revival really is about changing the status quo, shifting something, starting the pendulum, moving.
[00:52:17] The list I've given, I could probably double it, but I'm just trying to give you examples of some of the pressures that our world is Putting on us that will shut down that pendulum swinging. See what I believe is happening this weekend? Michael and Diane have the most extraordinary revival history. Stephen, Juliet, an extraordinary history of church planting, leading churches, winning the lost. Sue and I have been privileged to rub shoulders in a number of areas and be a part of this. There is a unique cocktail in this room, a unique cocktail where we have been involved in swinging a pendulum. And I believe that this weekend we are swinging a pendulum over our land, over this country of ours. It's not a competition against America, but it is a race against time.
[00:53:06] And this is our moment.
[00:53:08] So I want you to stand, I want to challenge you. What area of your life do you know I need to swing that pendulum? You need to take a risk.
[00:53:17] You need to stop accepting the status quo. You need to stop accepting. It's always been that way. I tell you, one of the things with leaders that are recognized as having some sort of fall or issues going on. One of the most common comments that you hear in those situations when there are discussions, oh, it's just so and so.
[00:53:40] It's this acceptance. Oh, that's the way they are. No, it needs an intervention. It needs a difficult conversation. It needs to change.
[00:53:51] See, if we're going to be the pure, spotless bride, if we are going to be a bride and a nation in revival, it is us that need to change something.
[00:54:03] What will you change?
[00:54:04] Where will you grab that pendulum and go, I'm gonna get out of that status quo? And then you just keep on winding that clock up. I'm gonna pray for the sick. I'm bringing heaven to earth. I tell you, the salvation piece. I watched Steve. I've watched him here. I've been privileged to watch him here. I actually saw him in a leaders advance do an altar call, and a couple of people, if I remember rightly, came forward in that meeting.
[00:54:27] And it can be uncomfortable.
[00:54:29] The pressure. You can feel that pressure, that external pressure. Oh, it's been 30 seconds since I gave the altar call. And he sometimes goes on six more minutes because he keeps the tension alive.
[00:54:45] We're too prone to shut it down.
[00:54:47] We're too prone to go, well, I did an altar call in October last year. I did one last year. No. Do one every week.
[00:54:55] I gave an opportunity in one special healing meeting to pray for the sick. No, Pray every week.
[00:55:01] We had an extended time of worship in our once a month extended worship meeting. No. Make sure that you're sensitive to steward the presence of God every week. Oh, does it feel uncomfortable? The congregation aren't quite participating. Yeah, there's tension. Keep the tension alive.
[00:55:21] Stay uncomfortable because the kingdom's uncomfortable. Jesus said it's uncomfortable. It will turn brothers against each other and fathers against sons. It's uncomfortable. That's what he was saying. It's not meant to be comfortable.
[00:55:35] And you might have to risk some discomfort.
[00:55:39] You might have to. Where is it in your life? That's my challenge.
[00:55:44] Just take a moment.
[00:55:46] Where will it be?
[00:55:48] What will you do differently? How will you swing the pendulum?
[00:55:52] How will you live differently? And how will you keep that pendulum swinging?
[00:55:57] Learn to be content with heaven on earth tension, prophetic tension, the tension of mystery, the tension of relational differences.
[00:56:10] And let's swing this pendulum in this land.
[00:56:13] Let's swing it hard.
[00:56:15] When we went to Toronto, Pensacola, Argentina, to Lakeland, to Bethel, to Anaheim, any of those places and many more, what we saw was somebody swinging a pendulum and showing us there's more.
[00:56:32] Do it again, God.
[00:56:34] Do it again.
[00:56:36] Cause us to be part of those that would grab hold of that pendulum and started swinging.
[00:56:45] Let us be those who will refuse to be content with the status quo, who will refuse to accept. Things just have always been that way. Who will refuse to accept in people around us that we have relationship with? Oh, that's just them.
[00:57:02] No, we press on.
[00:57:06] We press on to the high calling which God has for us.
[00:57:10] Father, take as it were our offering, our willingness to swing the pendulum, to make a difference, to be different, to do things different. Would you accept that as our offering? And would you this weekend, with this beautiful mix of revival history and experience, would, would you do something in this land that swings a mighty pendulum in the midst of the years? Revive us, O God.
[00:57:39] Revive us, I pray.
[00:57:42] Lift up a shout of praise to Him.
[00:57:49] Thanks for listening to the Chroma Charge Podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church. For more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship and how to donate, visit our website at Cromer Church.
