Sale City Church Blog

Ps Brian Heath’s message on Sunday 18 December 2011:

Genesis 28 (From verse 10)

Church can be a certain place: a place where we just go. Or church can be an awesome place: a place where his people gather together and something supernatural can happen. As we continue to go on this journey and grow together and continue to allow God to work in our hearts, we can come to a place where we have the dynamics of God on the inside of us and are able to express God to our community.

Church without God encounter is a certain place. Jacob and Esau wrestled in the womb and in life they wrestled for the birthright. They are a picture of the soul and the spirit. They are a picture of a natural man and the spirit man. We need to be able to push in to the next level. I believe next year is about “pressing in to the next level.” The word for next year is “High visibility, maximum impact.” But within this, all of us need to find the next level. We must keep moving forward towards our destiny. Jacob came to a certain place but when
he encountered God it became an awesome place.

Don’t stay the same as you were last year. Keep moving forward. Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever but he is the only person who is allowed to be! My heart is that Sale City Church would keep on moving towards its destiny. My heart is that each one of us would keep on moving toward our destiny. When people come into our church, we want them to know that they have met God.

The Samaritan woman came to a well, to draw water. Yet when Jesus offered her the living water, promising her she would thirst no more, she had a God encounter. A certain place became an awesome place.

I believe the day is going to come when the community looks and sees the answer in us (the church. Not just Sale City Church but churches where there is God encounter). It is here in seed form but we need to go further. Right now much of humanity is without hope. But when people begin to look at Jesus and connect with him properly, there is hope for their lives, families and their children. If we will seek after him and follow his ways, our lives will flourish.
It seems to me that we very much have a choice. We can come to a certain place or we can come for God encounter, come to an awesome place and God can find us. A certain place can become an awesome place when…

1. God finds his people. When you begin to press into God, he begins to restore you and reposition you. God has got to be able to find you. When Adam had sinned, God came down into the garden and said “Where are you Adam?” Guess who moved! It wasn’t God. Sometimes in our journey, we can move forward without God. We can hide from God. God must be able to find us. We must move forward with God. Even when it is tough, draw close to him. Turn to him. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

2. God begins to touch our spirits. You are a spirit. You are in a body. You have a soul. This is how God made you. You really begin to come alive when God touches your spirit. You can go to church all your life and know Jesus is a reality, but until he comes and touches your spirit we are in the certain place. We have not come to the awesome place. It becomes an awesome place when our spirit comes alive on the inside having been touched by Jesus Christ. This is not about good behaviour alone. When God revealed himself to Jacob, Jacob came alive. God has got to touch our spirit. He wants a relationship with us.

3. His people begin to carry his purpose. “For this purpose was the son of God manifest, that he would destroy the works of the evil one.” This was Jesus’ purpose on the earth. Ours is the same. It makes all the difference when we begin to carry his purpose. This is why we need to break through some barriers, cut off some things from the past and press to the next level. We don’t have to be perfect. Thank God for that! We just have to keep moving forward. When we start to live this way our life can become an awesome life. God wants to bring us to a place where His burden is my burden. I believe God has brought me to a place where it is like this: He wants His city back.

4. Our house becomes a habitation for Him. Our house can become His home. God is building us together. We are making a way for him to come and dwell. We should always be graceful, respectful and forgiving towards one another. We should never talk about other people behind their back. That is the world. That is an offence to God. We must encourage and build one another up so that he can build us together and our house becomes his dwelling place.

5. When there are two or three generations walking with the same purpose. When there are two or more generations walking together with the same purpose, Sale will begin to turn. When you build generationally it attracts God’s favour. I am looking forward to the future.

6. When there is revelation. The greatest key to success in life is to start to listen and live according to what God says. The world is doing what it wants now. It is living according to mans wisdom. Look at what is happening in the world today. There is a better way. Religion is not the answer. Changing the law is not the answer. Living according to what God says and allowing his government be established on the inside of us is the answer. A certain place can become an awesome place.

Brian Heath

Summary of Patrick’s message on Sunday 9 October 2011:

Relationships are the single most important thing in our lives. God has designed us to be relational beings, it’s wired into our psyches.

There are a few key relationships that impact hugely on our life:

Relationship with Mum: In the earliest stages of life the comfort, security and nurture given by mum imparts a sense of assurance in the child.

Relationship with Dad: Dad imparts a sense that “it can be done, you’re not alone, and I believe in you.”

Relationships with peers: Gives you a sense of acceptance, brings accountability and gets you through the ups and downs of life.

Relationship with life partner: Becoming the best kind of you through the push and pull of close relationship.

But it isn’t a perfect world and when these significant relationships fail we can react in different ways. Some of us become work addicts where no one’s approval is ever sufficient and our worth is bound up in achieving more and more. Others struggle with stress and live on an emotional roller coaster, suffer a lack of identity, get lost in the crowd or struggle to trust others for fear of being hurt again.

As a kid I was always a bit different. Mum and dad put such an individuality and creativity in us and were accepting of whatever we wanted to do. But kids at school weren’t always so accepting. I always loved to sing and I remember getting up in front of my grade 1 class and singing “Tomorrow” from Annie. I had my socks pulled up, my shirt tucked in and facial ticks so you can imagine I easily became the subject of teasing!

We’ve probably all gone through something like that in our childhood and as we grow up we try to leave it behind us and forget about it. But those dynamics leave an impression on you and set a pattern in your life. So after a few years what happens is a person becomes shut down. So at high school I was just quiet. You learn to adapt and survive in what can be a harsh environment but you aren’t yourself.

But God designed us and He knows us inside out. Our current relationships are temporary and our relationship with Him is eternal. God wants to become our Father.

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba Father”. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we might also be glorified together.”

ROMANS 8:15-17

We are on a journey in life and it’s about discovering God as our Father. Here are some key steps along on that journey:

1. Acknowledging our deep need for God. We were created with a deep longing for God.

“Countries like ours are full of people who have all the material comforts they desire, together with such non-material blessings as a happy family, and yet lead lives of quiet and, at times, noisy desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there is a hole inside them. And however much food and drink they pour into it, however many motorcars and television sets they stuff it with, however many well-balanced children and loyal friends they parade around the edges of it, it aches.” Bernard Levin –English journalist, author and broadcaster.

“The deepest search in life, it seemed to me, the thing that in one way or another was central to all living was man’s search to find a father, not merely the father of his flesh, not merely the lost father of his youth, but the image of strength and wisdom external to his need and superior to his hunger, to which the belief and power of his own life could be united.” Thomas Wolfe – American novelist

2. Learning to depend on and accept His love for us.

“Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God.”

ISAIAH 50:10a

Do you learn to depend on someone when everything is peachy or when it’s tough?

God knows there are times in our life when things aren’t good and it’s like we are walking in darkness, unsure of which way to go or how to respond. He tells us to walk through it and He will be our light.

Christianity isn’t about us reaching up trying to attain something unattainable. It’s about God reaching out to us through His Son Jesus and us accepting and responding to that.

3. Becoming changed and transformed out of relationship with Him. The Bible describes us as heirs of God. So for example, when your father passes away you receive the inheritance he left you. But while your father is alive there is another type of inheritance flowing into your life that is more valuable than possessions. He passes down his values, his love, his life lessons and wisdom. So if we are heirs of God the attributes of God are flowing into our life already. His righteousness, unconditional love, healing. We don’t have to wait to receive these things, they are available now, and they all come out of a relationship with Him, when we discover God as our Father.

Patrick McIvor