Latest / Citipointe Church Caboolture / Inconspicuous But Indispensable | Ps Dan O'Farrell
Transcript
- 0:02Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.
- 0:04Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to
- 0:07take hold of, so we hope this message inspires you and build
- 0:11your faith. That it helps you have more of
- 0:13the. God perspective for your day.
- 0:15Enjoy the. Month is you, us, and the church
- 0:19and the body of Christ. And so I want to open up some
- 0:24scripture this morning. I don't know if I'm going to get
- 0:26through it all because it's quite a lot.
- 0:28In this passage, I titled the message.
- 0:32That's not the message titled I did title, but I had a cup of
- 0:38coffee between then and now, and I changed the change the title
- 0:42of the message to inconspicuous but indispensable.
- 0:48That's some big words for Sunday morning, aren't they?
- 0:52Inconspicuous but indispensable. And so I want, I want to open
- 0:56the word up this morning from One Corinthians chapter 12.
- 0:59Now Paul wrote letters to the Roman church in Rome and he
- 1:05wrote letter to 2 letters to the church in Corinth, 1 Corinthians
- 1:09and Two Corinthians and, and, and chapter 12 in both of those
- 1:14letters he goes through pretty well the same thing.
- 1:17He wants to talk about the body of Christ.
- 1:18And so I'm going to move along pretty quick today because I
- 1:22have got a bit to get through and so might have to just keep
- 1:27up with me if that's possible. OK, I'm in training mood, not
- 1:31preaching mood. So one Corinthians chapter 12,
- 1:36it's Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthian church and he's
- 1:40talking about the body of Christ.
- 1:43Now the body of Christ being bigger than me, I'm not the body
- 1:46of Christ. I'm a member of the body of
- 1:48Christ. You are a member of the body of
- 1:51Christ. If if this is your first day,
- 1:53here you are and have given your life to Jesus, you're part of
- 1:58that body. The church is part of that body.
- 2:01And so Paul talks about the church as being the body of
- 2:05Christ. And so he writes in One
- 2:07Corinthians 12/12 he says just as the body is 1 and has many
- 2:13members, OK, that being you and me has many members and all the
- 2:19members are of the one body, though many one body.
- 2:24So it is with Christ in verse 14 it says the body does not
- 2:29consist of 1 member, but of many very, very important message.
- 2:35It says in Psalm 139 it says that you and I were fearfully
- 2:40and wonderfully made. We were fearfully and
- 2:45wonderfully made. No matter what you think about
- 2:48yourself or what you try to do to yourself to make yourself
- 2:52look more acceptable, approachable, or to get on with
- 2:58the other workmates or whatever it may be, I want you to know
- 3:01the way God made you is perfect. Come on, the way He made you is
- 3:08perfect. You were fearfully and
- 3:10wonderfully made and so is the church.
- 3:13And my first point I want to bring about this is that the
- 3:16difference between all of us is when God made the world, he made
- 3:20a world full of variety, full of variety.
- 3:26He loves variety. It says in One Corinthians 12/4.
- 3:30It says now there are there are varieties or diversity of gifts
- 3:39of the same Spirit and there are diversity of services, but the
- 3:43same Lord and there are diversities of workings, but of
- 3:46the same God who inspires or who works in everyone.
- 3:53Now as I look at you this morning, I see a great
- 3:57congregation of people, but you're all different.
- 4:01That's right, some of you come from Somalia, some from the
- 4:07Solomons. Home belong you.
- 4:13Some of you's come from Australia, some of us from
- 4:17Ireland. All different ages, different
- 4:22talents, different genders. Only two born a male man by
- 4:32choice. But we've got all different
- 4:35gifts in this place today, haven't we?
- 4:37Someone's got the gift of mercy, someone's got the gift of
- 4:40encouragement. We've got the gifts of
- 4:43leadership, we've got the gifts of ministry, We've got the gifts
- 4:45of stay at home mums. We praise you, we honour you, we
- 4:53thank you. My wife was a stay at home mum
- 4:58and we have never been so happy she was.
- 5:01If you work as well, I'm not criticizing that, but sometimes
- 5:05we don't honour these people enough.
- 5:08We got people who pray, we got our intercessory prayers, thank
- 5:12God for them. We got our finance people,
- 5:16people who born, they operate in the gift of finance, can make a
- 5:19lot of money very quickly, and they finance the ministries of
- 5:22God. We've got people who counsel
- 5:24people in finance. We've got the people of helps,
- 5:27we've got the people of wisdom, people of faith, people of
- 5:29hospitality. We got a lovely couple in this
- 5:32church. When Anne and I first came with
- 5:34the gift of hospitality, they invited us over for a meal.
- 5:39Meant so much to us, meant so much.
- 5:43We've got professional people. We have people in the medical
- 5:45field, in the trades. We have people who counselled.
- 5:48Talking to gentlemen this morning he's doing his master's
- 5:50degree in psychology. We will pray for you.
- 5:56We've got counsellors, we've got teachers.
- 5:59I'm a life coach. I couldn't do so.
- 6:00I couldn't do counselling. I don't have enough empathy.
- 6:03But we have people of grace. We got evangelism as a gift, but
- 6:10also we have soul winners by responsibility.
- 6:13That's interesting. We have chaplains, we have
- 6:15hospital chaplains, we have school chaplains, we have prison
- 6:18chaplains, we have industry chaplains.
- 6:21Whole range of we have discipleship, small group
- 6:24leaders, we have people look after our Sunday school, people
- 6:28look after our youth, we have people look after our young
- 6:30adults. And then we go, our senior
- 6:32pastors look after us. We take a lot of looking after.
- 6:37So we're so different, aren't we?
- 6:39So many gifts. And that's the body of Christ.
- 6:44So it's bigger than you and me. And this message today is not
- 6:47about a recruitment drive to bring people to do more in this
- 6:50church, 'cause Anne and I, 99% of what we do in our ministry is
- 6:54outside these four walls, beautiful streets.
- 6:58We go into a whole range of places that have nothing to do
- 7:01with this church. But that's our ministry.
- 7:04That's what we're called to do. So we're all different, everyone
- 7:10of us. And Paul says as the human body
- 7:12has many parts that have to work together for the body to
- 7:16function well. And for us about as a body of
- 7:20Christ, we've got to function together, we gotta work
- 7:23together. And as we work together, this
- 7:25nation of Australia will be touched by God and we've got to
- 7:28take the responsibility for where our nation is at the
- 7:31moment. We've got to take
- 7:34responsibility. The church has got to take
- 7:36responsibility. If we don't like abortion in our
- 7:38land, we've got to do something about that.
- 7:40And it's more than placards on the street.
- 7:42We've got to get people into government who can make the big
- 7:44decisions. The church has got to do its
- 7:47job. The body of Christ has got to
- 7:49function. We've got to function.
- 7:54We all have different age for every different places in our
- 7:57life. We've been retired for some
- 7:59years, but we're redefining where retirement is because
- 8:02we're not 6 foot under the ground yet.
- 8:07And every day this side of the grass, I've got work to do
- 8:10because my nation that I live in needs the gift that I carry and
- 8:15it needs a gift that you carry. We got workplaces that need to
- 8:19be touched. We got chippies in this place
- 8:21who, when they're on the job site, can talk to people about
- 8:24Christ. We've got doctors who can go
- 8:26into hospitals and and work with people in their place.
- 8:30And so the first thing I want to say here today is the
- 8:32inconspicuous are indispensable, 'cause Anne and I, we're
- 8:37inconspicuous to you most of the time, but we're indispensable in
- 8:41the land, in our neighborhood and in our community.
- 8:44And so are all of us. I looked up.
- 8:47I went on to chat. TVT people like me have got to
- 8:53feel a bit so I looked up what does inconspicuous in
- 8:57indispensable means. It means someone that is quietly
- 9:00doing their job in the background that no one knows
- 9:04about and yet things would not work without them.
- 9:09Perfect example is Pastor Henry, I come up here on some Thursdays
- 9:14and I see Pastor Henry here doing his stuff on a whole tribe
- 9:18of guys behind him cutting grass and cleaning.
- 9:21You know what, I honestly thought that the angels clean
- 9:24the church. They do.
- 9:30I thought somehow they came in when you're not watching you
- 9:33know between and they do it till last Sunday turned around and
- 9:36all mates over the side there with a vacuum cleaner cleaning
- 9:39of Lord dear Lord, thank God for them.
- 9:43Thank God for them. It takes us all takes us all
- 9:45takes us all takes us all takes me it takes you.
- 9:49The second point I mean I want to make here today is the need
- 9:53for all of us, not just some of us the need for all of us.
- 10:00I got this little sentence here write it down.
- 10:03I know it's Sunday morning, but this is this is a profound
- 10:09little thing that I came up with.
- 10:12We are all interconnected in a symbiotic, synergistic
- 10:17relationship. Let me explain it.
- 10:24Last week I couldn't spell engineer.
- 10:27Today I am 1. What does it mean we are
- 10:32interconnected in a symbiotic? What did the gardeners know?
- 10:37What symbiosis? Symbiosis is when you get 2
- 10:40organisms that work together for the benefit of both of them.
- 10:45Church. There's no loners in the body of
- 10:48Christ. There's no lone ranges in the
- 10:52body of Christ. We are in a symbiotic I connect
- 10:57a really good one is like a marriage.
- 11:00Anne and IA symbiotic 53 something full years of
- 11:04marriage. Over that time we have a
- 11:09symbiotic relationship where both of us benefit from our
- 11:14relationship. Anne is the brains and I am the
- 11:18Jeep. OK, we got it worked out.
- 11:23Anne is the smart. She is the one that nuts, the
- 11:26she is the creative one. I am the the developer.
- 11:29We buy houses, we renovate them, we sell them.
- 11:32She'll know how to do one part, I do another part.
- 11:36We come out very well. That is symbiosis.
- 11:39Synergy means 1 + 1 = 3, and so synergy is it means that the
- 11:46outcome of the 2 is far greater than the addition of each one.
- 11:52We are in a connected symbiotic synergistic relationship where
- 11:57you and I in the body of Christ connect with one another so that
- 12:01the outcomes are far greater than what we could ever do by
- 12:05ourselves. A good example is 2 people.
- 12:11One person might be a really good cook and loves to cook
- 12:15beautiful food, but but scrolls with shyness.
- 12:20But they want to see people come to the Lord say so they connect
- 12:24up with somebody who who's a real extrovert and a real
- 12:28people's person and really can talk about Christ.
- 12:32Those two get together. One puts the barbecue on and the
- 12:36other one does the soul winning. That's what we call a symbiotic
- 12:40relationship in One Corinthians 12/21/22.
- 12:44It says the I cannot say to the hand I have no need for you.
- 12:49Nor again can the heart say the head, but nor again said the
- 12:54head say to the feet, I have no need for you.
- 12:57And the new King James Bible puts this really good.
- 12:59He says I have no need for you, and he says no, no, no.
- 13:03On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker
- 13:11or inconspicuous are indispensable.
- 13:16And there's people in this congregation today.
- 13:18You've got amazing gifts over your life and you think that
- 13:22they are insignificant. They are not insignificant.
- 13:26They are indispensable. And we need to know how we
- 13:30connect up into the symbiotic relationship where we can change
- 13:35our world for Jesus Christ. They seem inconspicuous.
- 13:41Here. We going for time nine year ago,
- 13:53Nine year ago, I went for an operation where they had to
- 14:01replace my left hip. It was all arthritic and worn
- 14:06out, and in that first operation, I was one on 99% of
- 14:13people who have that operation. The operation went really,
- 14:18really well. We had a house at Browns Plains
- 14:22that we were renovating at the time.
- 14:25Day after I got home, I was on the roof changing tiles and
- 14:28doing what I stupidly do. My wife, The Walking risk
- 14:33assessment said. What are you doing up there, you
- 14:36buffet? Changing the tiles?
- 14:38What do you think I'm doing? You just had a major operation.
- 14:42Yeah, well, it'll be all right. What's wrong with you?
- 14:44It went really well. Can you be that dumb and still
- 14:51breathe two years later? I had the other hip replaced,
- 15:00but when I had the other hip replaced, I was part of the 1%
- 15:05where the operation didn't go well.
- 15:10And so they get you out of bed 2 hours after the operation and
- 15:16they get you to stand and to walk on it.
- 15:19And I hopped on and and my left leg gave away and I said my leg
- 15:26don't work. That's the point when the
- 15:29doctors and the nurses head for the hills, I can tell you they
- 15:35all scattered. Rang the doctor.
- 15:37What do you mean he can't walk? And I said I can't walk.
- 15:39I'm I'm like the guy took his car and get the tires changed.
- 15:41When he came back in, the engine was missing.
- 15:43You know, never felt like that. You know, the leg don't work,
- 15:49leg don't work. Now up this part of your leg
- 15:54here, there's four basic muscles.
- 15:56We call them the quadriceps 4 meaning quads.
- 16:01You also got another one. The longest muscle in your body
- 16:04is sartorius that goes down. Now these four muscles plus the
- 16:08sartorius, they're the muscles that enable you to walk, OK.
- 16:14They enable you to walk up steps, they enable you to kick,
- 16:17they enable you to run and they enable you to walk well.
- 16:22But none belongings to me that during the operation the
- 16:28pheromone nerve got injured, the inconspicuous but the
- 16:35indispensable got damaged. They told me I damaged it.
- 16:42I said mate, I wasn't playing a game football, I was out to it.
- 16:45They said yeah, well you damaged your nerves so the pheromone
- 16:51nerve hold your little finger up.
- 16:53They said be your pheromone nerve is about 8 to 10 mil in
- 16:56diameter, inconspicuous little nerve.
- 17:00Now I bet this morning that none of you's got out of bed and
- 17:05thought, I hope my legs work. I said to Stan.
- 17:14I said to Stan this morning. I said, Stan, you get the
- 17:16sexiest legs in the in the church.
- 17:19Like I say, up and sorry, Shane, sorry.
- 17:27And up until that point, I had the sexiest legs in the street
- 17:30too, I can tell you. But they weren't any good after
- 17:32that. My leg never worked because the
- 17:35inconspicuous, the part that I took for granted, the part that
- 17:42every morning I got up to make a cup of tea worked and all of a
- 17:46sudden the part of the body didn't work.
- 17:51So I said to the doctor, I said, well, how long is it going to be
- 17:54taking for this thing get fixed up?
- 17:57Don't know, he said, but if it's not fixed by 18 months, it's not
- 18:02going to work anymore. So it came back that I had to
- 18:07wear a, a big long leg brace. And if you know me, I, I'm not
- 18:12going to live my life wearing braces.
- 18:16So I was determined that this leg was going to work.
- 18:18It's got to work. So I learned to walk without the
- 18:23brace and I learned to flick my leg and I'd walk around, I heard
- 18:29smelling the lawn one day and of course Jeff's next door.
- 18:35You're right, Dan said. Mate, don't talk.
- 18:40And what would happen? I'd walk around the block,
- 18:44flicking my leg, so like that, but then what would happen?
- 18:48Variably the leg would give away and I'd end up on the ground, on
- 18:52my face, in the gravel, and I'd come home like I'd played a game
- 18:57of football, with blood pouring down my arms and enough hide off
- 19:01being to make a nice pair of dancing shoes.
- 19:04And wasn't pretty. Wasn't pretty, 18 months came
- 19:15and went, still no leg working. But friends, that's what the
- 19:22church looks like when the inconspicuous don't do what they
- 19:26should be doing. The church ends up walking with
- 19:31a limb, a spiritual limb. And that's why our nation is
- 19:36where it's at. Because the body of Christ isn't
- 19:40doing what the body of Christ should be doing. 1 little move
- 19:43size, your pinky, that's all works. 5 big muscles.
- 19:49It's a motor nerve and a sensory nerve, which means I've got no
- 19:52feeling down inside of my leg. And two muscles grew back, the
- 19:58other two muscles shrunk. So I don't have any muscles
- 20:01there now. But what a picture of the body
- 20:05of Christ that can be. What a picture of the body of
- 20:12Christ. Where atrophy sets in and then
- 20:16apathy sets in and it shrinks up.
- 20:21And so today I want to bring it before, you know, Paul was
- 20:24talking about the body of Christ.
- 20:27I've got a calling to the body. 75 this year.
- 20:32I can say, oh, mate, I've done my deal.
- 20:35I just want to kick back. Well, no, haven't gone to be
- 20:40with Jesus yet. Pastor Henry, that's when the
- 20:43day comes we'll get young people today you get a gift on your
- 20:45life. Your nation needs you, your
- 20:48nation needs you, your nation needs you.
- 20:54And so when we're thinking about every part has its place to to
- 20:58play. So the next point I want to
- 21:02bring out is the need for all. All parts are equal.
- 21:07And if one part profits, the whole body profits.
- 21:12In One Corinthians 12/16 it says if the ears should say because
- 21:17I'm not an I, I do not belong to the body, that would make you
- 21:24lesser of a body. Or if one member suffers
- 21:32together, they all suffer. But when 1 member who's
- 21:34honoured, they all honoured. Look, today we've got people up
- 21:38here who play. It doesn't mean they're any
- 21:41better than the person who goes into the prisons and does prison
- 21:45ministry no better. They're in, no one sees that.
- 21:49I, I do a lot of work in prisons, done a lot of the
- 21:52prisons up and down the East Coast and in Victoria and in New
- 21:56South Wales. And all I know in there is a lot
- 21:59of people that need Jesus. Come on, some of you just ran
- 22:03faster than those guys. You didn't get caught, Come on,
- 22:11we all need Jesus and because you're not seen it doesn't mean
- 22:18that you are not needed. We need all and when one is
- 22:23honoured it's all honoured. So if Anne goes in and
- 22:28volunteers for Lifeline and and lead someone to the Lord and
- 22:31there you are honoured. You may not know about it, but
- 22:36the body of Christ grows and that's why we do it.
- 22:40We are all interconnected in a symbiotic and synergistic
- 22:46relationship. We are all connected, all of us,
- 22:52every one of us Think about it together.
- 22:57We can do more. When we had our church in
- 23:00Caloundra, we had a church there for 15 years and they had a lady
- 23:05came to me one day and she said, Dan, she said, I, I like to
- 23:09knit. I said, oh, God bless you.
- 23:13God bless you until she said, but I, I could do some knitting
- 23:18here in the church. What do you think about I, if I
- 23:21get a couple of friends, we could, we could start a little
- 23:25knitting group. Oh, I said, well, that's if you
- 23:28want to do that. That sounds pretty cool.
- 23:30Before I knew it, she had about 8 or 10 ladies in that, and they
- 23:35call themselves the Sunshine Knitters.
- 23:38Think about this. Yeah, I mean it.
- 23:40Start. All things start off small.
- 23:43Before long, I had 8/10/12. And I'd come out of my office
- 23:47and they'd perk up. We bought a nice big industrial
- 23:49coffee machine. You've got to have one of those
- 23:51things. And we'd make brews up and
- 23:53everyone'd be making a brew and they'd come out.
- 23:55Oh, how come I meet old Aunt Myrtle?
- 23:58Oh, hello, Aunt Myrtle. You know, Aunt Myrtles, this is
- 24:01her first time here there and she hasn't been to church.
- 24:04She doesn't come to church. And before we know it, those
- 24:06ladies, they're leading to Aunt Myrtle to the Lord Jesus and
- 24:10she's coming to church. And I thought, oh, Gee, that's
- 24:13pretty cool. And so they got together and
- 24:15they went around to to lie spotlight and they said, if
- 24:19you've got any old wool you can give us.
- 24:21They said, yeah, we got wool, we can.
- 24:22And before we knew it, they had all this wool there.
- 24:26And so they're knitting all of the stuffed cardigans and people
- 24:29for in Africa, and all of a sudden they've got an outreach
- 24:32happening going overseas to New Guinea, into the Solomons.
- 24:35And not that the Solomons need jumpers, mind you.
- 24:39But anyway, they were sending them over there and they were
- 24:42doing all of this stuff. This is what I'm talking about.
- 24:46Every little insignificant, every little bit inconspicuous
- 24:54things that we have when we get together and work together, and
- 24:58these things can become profound.
- 25:00Man, every Tuesday, can women talk?
- 25:04Oh, I'm telling you what? They could talk underwater with
- 25:08a mouth or a marble. Some of these girls, oh na, na,
- 25:11na, na na, but in the process, they're leading people to the
- 25:15Lord. They're helping people.
- 25:17This is what we're talking about, interconnection with some
- 25:21biotic relationships. The body of Christ doing what
- 25:25the body of Christ does. The next point .4 How are we
- 25:31going? I'm running out of steam here.
- 25:35Done all right, Shane #4 God chooses in verse 8, he says, But
- 25:45as it is, God arranges the organs in the body, each one of
- 25:51them as he chooses, God arranges these.
- 25:58I want to tell you a story. When Anna I first got born again
- 26:02and in his file I was pretty, I was quite a rough diamond and
- 26:10God had a bit of work to do. But anyway, I thought I saw
- 26:13these musos up the front and now are pretty cool and I thought,
- 26:19oh, Henry, if I get up there mate, I'm super Spiro.
- 26:22I mean, I'd sort of stop swearing, I'd stop drinking.
- 26:27I had some other things I had to work through as well.
- 26:30But I thought if I could get up on the stage mate, I'd be I'd be
- 26:32pretty cool. So I was going to become a muso.
- 26:38All my brothers and sisters, they're all trained musicians.
- 26:43My two sisters are very highly trained on the piano.
- 26:47My brothers, they've, he's got a Irish band up in, up in
- 26:51Walkerman where you're from. And my younger brother, he all,
- 26:54all musos. All my, our kids are musos.
- 26:59Daughter who's a music teacher. I've got a son who's a really
- 27:04great drummer. We had to put a thicker one of
- 27:06those around him for keeping quiet, mind you.
- 27:09And we had another daughter, she could play anything.
- 27:11So I said to her, obviously it's in the jeans, obviously.
- 27:18So I buys this guitar and I'm practicing this guitar and I'm
- 27:24practicing. Oh mate, I'm going to get up on
- 27:26that stage and I'm just going to be so out there.
- 27:31Spiro had that guitar two years and I'm bashing away.
- 27:38My youngest daughter called a family conference after that
- 27:46family conference. Plenty of pizza and coke.
- 27:50They came to the decision that Dad was best selling his guitar
- 27:54and buying a power saw and a hammer drill, which Dan did.
- 28:03But I am a person of determination, so I thought,
- 28:08obviously I'm a singer. Well, I'd heard myself sing in
- 28:14the shower enough, mate, I'm a soprano.
- 28:17My dad, he used to always sing when Irish eyes are smiling.
- 28:21You know how good you sound in the shower.
- 28:23He's in there. Balloon away, man.
- 28:25I thought, oh mate, obviously the anointing's over my life to
- 28:29be a singer, a song leader. So here we go, one day in
- 28:37Caloundra. I'm up there.
- 28:39I'm the senior pastor because when you're the senior pastor,
- 28:42you got the right to the mic. Is that right past this right?
- 28:46I'm going to show you this church man.
- 28:48I'm up there balling away, singing away and singing away.
- 28:53And, and anyway, that went alright for a week or two.
- 28:56What I didn't realize, my daughter Renee, who was our
- 28:59music director, she'd spoken to the guys down the back and said
- 29:03turn dad's mic off, please. But no, no, this is what I was
- 29:12going to be. I mean, I was God gifted.
- 29:15My auntie was the Australian soprano champion at 18.
- 29:19Get that? How many you can say that?
- 29:22I mean, it's in the jeans. Obviously I chose and I was a
- 29:26singer, so I'm up there. They turned my mic off, but man,
- 29:31I was going to be heard. Aye, the next minute I hear this
- 29:36little sweet voice in my ear from my daughter saying, Dad,
- 29:41can you please be quiet? God chooses, but I'm determined.
- 29:56So I make instruments now. I make violins, I make lutes, I
- 30:02make guitars and I make instruments because that's the
- 30:07gift that God's given me. I wasn't that bad.
- 30:15I didn't think so. But there's nothing worse than a
- 30:19person outside of their gift. Is that right?
- 30:22Come on. Is that right?
- 30:24I mean, you don't let me in the kitchen.
- 30:26I would poison you, honestly. Honestly.
- 30:32But I make a mean guitar and I make really good violins.
- 30:41And what Anne can work out with her gift of creativity, I can
- 30:46make many things I can't do. But see, the body of Christ is
- 30:52made-up of people like you and me, People who Can't Sing for
- 30:56nuts. I wondered I couldn't ever work
- 31:02it out. I finally got on the stage, hey
- 31:03with the guitar and I always wondered well, every time I
- 31:07hopped up all the others were sick that day.
- 31:11What's going on? And I remember 1 halfway through
- 31:13through praise and worship, everyone's in God and my hands
- 31:16got sore, Chris, my hands got sore.
- 31:19So I just stopped playing, sorry.
- 31:21And the musically turned around said what's going on?
- 31:24Said my hands are sore. God chooses what you're going to
- 31:34do. The the talent you got is the
- 31:39talent you're born with. The gift you've got is the gift
- 31:44you get when you're born again. It's not for me to choose.
- 31:53It's not for me to choose. Oh, I want to do this.
- 31:55I want to know. Someone said, why do you still
- 31:58preaching? Well, that's what I'm told to
- 32:00do. Does that make sense?
- 32:05And today there's people in this church here.
- 32:08You, you think you've got this inconspicuous gift.
- 32:11You think you've got this, this, this gift that no one would
- 32:14want. Well, why don't you try it and
- 32:16see what God will do with it? When I came to the Lord, I said
- 32:20to my pastor, I said pastor, I said, I'll fix your buildings
- 32:23up, but don't ever ask me to preach.
- 32:26I never want to do that. And what did he do to me?
- 32:33It's not for me to choose the old saying, I'm not here to ask
- 32:37the reasons why. I'm just here to do and die.
- 32:40That's what we're here to do. And when you do, when I do what
- 32:45I'm called to do, when I accept the gift that God's given me,
- 32:51when I can accept that and pray over that gift and believe God
- 32:57for that gift and can give that gift exposure to be able to
- 33:00work. You know, there's people you,
- 33:02you're in the workplace and you think that you don't have a gift
- 33:05from God. There's people in your workplace
- 33:07that need to hear about Jesus. I know what it's like.
- 33:11I I've worked in the mines, I've worked underground and working
- 33:15in the area of safety and people coming to meet me.
- 33:18No, mate, we could talk safety. No, but then you don't
- 33:20understand. My marriage is messed up.
- 33:25I need help. And today when we think about
- 33:29it, we are interconnected. You know what?
- 33:34Pastor Rachel can't do what she does in the school as a school
- 33:37chaplain unless we have their intercessory prayers in the dark
- 33:42when no one knows about that. They're praying and they believe
- 33:46in God for miracles. Today.
- 33:48People have spent hours praying for this meeting today.
- 33:51You don't know who they are, but they know who they are and they
- 33:55know they're anointed and then they're empowered.
- 33:59Come on, come on, let's think about you.
- 34:00You might say, well, who am I? Well, who am I?
- 34:03When I came a pastor, I walked down the street at Minnesota and
- 34:06went. One of my mates, he said, what
- 34:07are you doing for a living now, Dan?
- 34:08I said I'm a pastor and he looked at me and said, do they
- 34:10let anyone become pastors these days?
- 34:13Do they? Obviously I said to one guy, I
- 34:18said I'm a pastor. He said what?
- 34:19A plasterer. No, not a plasterer, a pastor, a
- 34:23pastor in Innisfile. I never thought I'd end up that
- 34:28way. We just wanted to build houses
- 34:31and I just wanted to be an engineer.
- 34:35But see, God had a call in the body of Christ.
- 34:37You are part of that body, Church.
- 34:39You are part of that body. And if you don't accept that
- 34:44you're a part and that God has given you a part to play in this
- 34:48whole whole thing that God's doing, we're going to walk like
- 34:52I did. The church is going to walk with
- 34:54a limp. It's going to walk with a limp.
- 34:58And you know, I still got part of a limp because two muscles
- 35:01grew back and two didn't. I have trouble walking up steps.
- 35:04I have trouble walking down steps.
- 35:06But that's part of the deal, isn't it?
- 35:09Is that part of the deal? But I don't want the body of
- 35:13Christ to walk with a limb. I don't want it.
- 35:18I don't want it to be disabled. I want our nation to change.
- 35:23I want, I want you to to enjoy the rewards of serving Jesus.
- 35:31We're the happiest couple on earth.
- 35:32Why? Because we spent our lives
- 35:34serving Him. What could you do?
- 35:37Hands the brains of the operation on the mouthpiece.
- 35:41We've got a synergistic relationship.
- 35:44She gets the ideas and I build them.
- 35:45Does that make sense? I'm still the leader.
- 35:50I still take the responsibility of the leadership.
- 35:52Although we're very much a team. I take the pressure of the
- 35:54leadership. I'm the one that says yes or no,
- 35:57because that's my role. I don't like that very much.
- 36:01Most men don't. Is that right?
- 36:04We we like to pass it on to our wife.
- 36:06No, no, that's my responsibility as a male, as the man, as the
- 36:09husband. Just read Ephesians.
- 36:10It says that I'm the head of the I've got to make, I've got to
- 36:13lay down my life for our relationship and I've got to do
- 36:17the hard yards. I had to do the fly in, fly out
- 36:21to the mines. I had to work the night shifts.
- 36:24I had to work the hours. But that's the deal.
- 36:28Is it? Is that right now we're going
- 36:30here. Can you smiles, friend?
- 36:37Don't rob yourself, don't rob yourself of the glory of serving
- 36:42Christ. And it might be mowing the
- 36:45lawns, it might be painting the buildings, but it might be the
- 36:48prison ministry, it might be going to court with people.
- 36:52It might be the counsellors. Talking to gentleman this
- 36:54morning. He's doing his masters in
- 36:56psychology. What an incredible impact he
- 36:59will have in our nation. I go into businesses and I train
- 37:03people in the area of mental health first aid and the people
- 37:06I meet in those big businesses, multinational businesses, are
- 37:10made-up of a lot of broken people.
- 37:13Did you hear that? Our nation is, is it's led by a
- 37:21lot of broken people, Broken people, people who need to hear
- 37:28the gospel, people who need to have a friend, people who got an
- 37:33ear to listen. You say, Dan, I'm not educated.
- 37:35Well, join the club. That's where it's at.
- 37:39And the 3rd and final point I'm going to make here.
- 37:44Today is time for muses. You were going to come when it
- 37:46was time. I've been waiting for you guys.
- 37:55The last part is, is verse 25, that there may be no discord,
- 38:03discord in the body, but that the members may have the same
- 38:09care for one another. You know, as a body of Christ,
- 38:14we've got to care for one another.
- 38:18Too often I hear of criticism, this music's too loud and this,
- 38:24you know, God's not deaf. I know he's not deaf.
- 38:29That's the way people are. Is that right?
- 38:32We've got to care for one another.
- 38:33I remember with this nerve in my leg, 18 months had gone by and,
- 38:38and I was still falling over and still making a mess of myself.
- 38:42And, and I'm sitting on the end of the bed and I'm, I'm, I'm,
- 38:45I'm caring for this nerve. I'm praying over it.
- 38:48Father, I speak healing into it. I speak healing and and still
- 38:53there was no no feeling in my leg.
- 38:55There's no movement in my leg. You know, I sit on the end of
- 38:57the bed and and there was just no brain body connection.
- 39:02And in one day it moved must have been about a thousandth of
- 39:05an inch. And Anne was in the kitchen.
- 39:08I yelled out it's happened. It's happened up until that day
- 39:15I was falling over in the kitchen, breaking the handles
- 39:18off the drawers and I was a mess.
- 39:20But I wasn't going to be held by anything, wasn't going to be
- 39:25held. And for two years it took every
- 39:30day I had to care for that nerve because there's an old saying
- 39:33that nerves are easily offended and slow to forgive.
- 39:37Bit like people I've heard. But that's the choice down the
- 39:41road. But every day I had to care for
- 39:45that nerve, I had to pray of that nerve and I'd see if that
- 39:50nerve was going to work. And for two years it didn't.
- 39:56But the day came when it moved a little bit and it took about six
- 40:00months to get that much movement on it.
- 40:04And over a period of about four years, I slowly could start to
- 40:08walk again took time. That member had the work.
- 40:14That little insignificant, that insignificant little nerve, that
- 40:22inconspicuous little thing was indispensable.
- 40:28And your gift is no different. Your gift is no different.
- 40:34What's over your life is no different.
- 40:35But the body of Christ needs it. It needs it.
- 40:41The body of Christ needs you. You, you young people.
- 40:48We need your freshness, we need your enthusiasm.
- 40:54We need your zest for life, you old people.
- 40:58We need your life experience. Because you know what dry
- 41:02gullies are like and you know what it's like to be discouraged
- 41:05and get yourself back up off the mat.
- 41:07We need that the body cry. You haven't got to do a lot of
- 41:10physical stuff to bring that to the body of Christ.
- 41:13We need you to grab some of these young people and to train
- 41:15them. Young marriage.
- 41:17We need you. We need you to train your kids.
- 41:21We need for you to put into your kids.
- 41:24You empty nest is out there. We need you because now you've
- 41:29got a little bit more time and probably a little bit more
- 41:31money. Would that be right?
- 41:34We're not spend so much money on Nikes and things like we need
- 41:37you. The body of Christ needs you.
- 41:41Well, that almost went over like a jumbo jet, didn't it?
- 41:48We need you so this morning.