Matt Guddat preaches on the call, cost, and blessing of Christian discipleship and mission
A visiting pastor from Whangarei, New Zealand, Matt Guddat, delivers a message at Rivers Apostolic Centre on surrendering everything to God's call, with a particular focus on global missions.
Summary
Matt Guddat, founder of Mission House Church in Whangarei and national director of World Outreach New Zealand, is welcomed as a guest speaker at Rivers Apostolic Centre. He opens with a prophetic word for the church — that God is about to increase their missions capacity to an entirely new level, likening it to a software upgrade. The core of his message draws from Luke 14, where Jesus calls his followers to count the cost of discipleship, arguing that Western Christianity has communicated God's love without adequately communicating the radical, all-encompassing nature of the call. He contends that 1.3 to 1.8 billion people have never heard the name of Jesus, and that the church's comfort-oriented culture has stalled the outward flow of the gospel. To illustrate the extreme cost of obedience, he recounts the story of a German missionary who gave up his bag, money, and glasses at God's command and walked from Germany to India, arriving near death before being raised up to become a missionary — a story Guddat presents as a challenge to the congregation's own willingness to surrender. He also references current flood devastation in Nepal, where churches and pastors have been wiped out even as the gospel is exploding, giving urgency to the global missions call. He closes with a prayer of surrender, inviting the congregation to release everything — relationships, finances, plans, and fears — that stands between them and the fullness of their calling.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Welcome and introduction of Matt Guddat
Aaron Salisbury: Praise the Lord. Let's give him glory this morning. Amen. Thank you to the worship team. We so appreciate you guys. And I just want to appreciate our sound team as well. Thank you for making us sound good.
We're in a season of shift, and I could feel that today. Spring is here, and we just thank the Lord that we're all in a new season. Talking to a few people this morning, I could really feel the Lord is releasing heaviness off his people and bringing in the lightness and the ease of his presence and his anointing. Thank you, Sarah, for oiling that lady — the oil of joy instead of heaviness.
Our children are released to go to Children's River Kids. May you get so encountered with the King of Kings. We just bless our children. Lord, bless our young people. Let their eyes see Jesus.
We're super excited to have Matt and Lee with us today. Lee's looking after — yes, she is. Everyone turn around. That's Lee. This is a beautiful family, the Guddat family. Everyone say Guddat. And they're really good at loving Jesus. Matt, we're just going to welcome him and his family to come.
Matt has launched a church in Whangarei, the same city that Andy and Diana are in. Aaron and I and the team — the ANZAC team — got to meet Matt last year because he put us up for a few nights at his church. We were the first Christian group that got to stay at the church, so we got to really test the plumbing, and it worked. Matt hosted us and we just connected. I think it was only within hours that the ANZAC team and Mission House just connected. So it's such a joy to have him and his whole family here this weekend. We've been getting to know them more, and we just want to welcome Matt with the word of the Lord.
We're going to pray for him. Is Aaron here? He's gone into a portal. Is Mia here? Mia, come and lead. Can we pray for you? Mia, come on up, and when Aaron comes, he can join us. We just want to pray the blessing of this house on the Guddat family. This is Jamie, everybody. He's on baby duty.
Let's just stretch out our hands. Lord, I just thank you for Matt and for Lee and for their three boys. I thank you that they've come over here for multiple assignments. Lord, I just pray this morning that as Matt shares, the blessing and the longevity of our house would be poured into him. And everything that Matt and Lee are asking you for, Lord, that their hearts would be refreshed and that they would take home a bounty back home, and that they would continually draw from the reservoir of what you've got in store for them. Lord, that their hearts would not grow weary, but they would be encouraged and nourished and strengthened beyond what they had dreamed for. Amen.
Let's give them a hand. Can't wait to hear what you've got, bro.
Matt Guddat's opening remarks and background
Matt Guddat: Thank you for the welcome, everyone. It's a wonderful honor to be here. I actually came in May and sat in the front row and observed, so you may think, I know this guy from somewhere — yes, I was in here. Thank you so much for that.
Thank you to Andrew and Mia for hosting us, and to Levi, Evan, and Abby for enduring a little baby running around their house in the morning. It's wonderful. And thanks to Pastor Aaron, who is somewhere. I did meet Wendy last time as well, which was wonderful. And I actually met Sarah and Michael when they came over to New Zealand. It was just a really cool blessing to connect with these guys over there. We have actually done lots of work on the plumbing since then — we had leaking taps and other things going on — so we're doing up the building slowly.
This is the first time we've, with our existing family, come on a trip together, and it's just really cool. We're so excited about the snakes. We're just so excited about your wildlife. We got to hold a whole bunch of them yesterday and they crawled over us, and it was so cool. Of course, New Zealand doesn't have any snakes. It kind of doesn't have anything, so it's really nice to come here.
I'm actually not from New Zealand — you might be wondering about my accent. I'm actually from the UK. I grew up on the western islands of Scotland, and I came over to New Zealand two or three years after being saved to do missions work with YWAM, Youth with a Mission. I spent a couple of years there, met my wife, served in a church for many years, and then, as Andrew said, recently have been pioneering the Mission House Church, which has been amazing.
I also serve as the national director in New Zealand for an organization called World Outreach. Some of you may have heard of them. They're a mission support agency that helps assist missionaries going short, medium, and long term into unreached people groups around the world. That's been such a God journey, and some of that might flow into this morning's message.
The importance of expectancy in meeting with God
God's in the room. And whenever we meet, God is here, and the question we always have is, what is he doing? If we come to church, it's with the expectancy that the Lord is going to be there and something is going to happen. If we come with that attitude, it doesn't matter what the service looks like. I don't know if you have Christian fatigue, as I do, where I've been in so many meetings over my life, sitting there, and it's the same format — we have worship, then we have this, then we have the speaker, and we go, we should do it differently. And then we do it differently and it's a bit weird, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it doesn't matter the format. What matters is that the anticipation of meeting with the Lord is in the room, and that we're in listening mode, asking, what is the Father saying today? What is his communication?
Jesus says that the will of the Father becomes our food. The food, we think, is when the nutrients go in, but the food is when we are equipped to go out to do the Father's will. The hearing of God's voice will always be in the direction of the outward flow.
A prophetic word for Rivers Apostolic Centre
So today I wanted to share a prophetic word with you guys, just as I was preparing to come over here. Often I'll wake up in the night and the Lord will just speak to me. I joke about this, but it's probably true — it's easier to hear God when our minds are not so active. I wake up in the night and I just find it easier to hear him in that place. I'd love to say that I write it down, but sometimes I'm like, I'm not getting out of bed, and I just lie there and listen to the Lord. His word is living like a double-edged sword. It goes into me, and then the next day I wake up and his word is alive.
This was the word that came to me for you guys. I said, God, I can't share this — and you'll see why — and God said, no, I want you to share it. So this is the word I had for you guys. I've been holding it in so I didn't spoil this moment. I just felt like God is going to increase your mission capacity as a church. And when the Lord said that, I was like, dude, this is like the most missional church I know. You guys have missions offering baskets up the front. You do missions Sundays every month, plus another missions offering last week, I heard. So you guys are doing missions, and I said, God, are you sure that this is the word?
I just felt that God is saying the missions capacity of this church is going to increase to another capacity. It was like a software update. I was trying to think, how does it feel? I don't know if you remember when AI was coming out and we were both terrified and excited at the fact that it could make a cooking menu for us for the week, or we could ask it questions of the heart and it would weirdly predict what we were thinking. And it's basically just a bunch of code. But AI is actually only possible because software exists, because computers exist, because the LCD exists, because back in the 1950s there was a mainframe computer. All of these are small upgrades, to the point where something happens and it just seems to blow our minds.
I just felt for you guys as a church, God is going to blow your minds. The platform over the years of you guys preparing for mission is going to be like a bonfire that's been poured with petrol. It's going to come to another level. I don't know how that works and what the outworking of that will be, and that's not my responsibility. Hallelujah. So I'll give that to you guys.
The warning label on prophetic words
And it comes with a warning label. How many times have we heard a prophetic word over our lives and gone, wow, praise God? And sometimes the flesh begins to interpret that a little bit. The flesh puts itself in there. Sometimes we're not ready for the word because the flesh in us needs to be dealt with.
Perhaps the most amazing thing is that when the word comes, God wants to take us into a pondering — that the prophetic word would come through relationship with the Lord. We love it when somebody says exactly what's going to happen and how it's going to happen. We want a prescriptive prophecy. But most prophecies of bigger things are really exciting, but they're an invitation to pondering.
Luke 2, verse 9 — when all these things happen around the birth of Christ, it says Mary pondered these things in her heart. Not in her mind, not as we do, strategising, working out how this is going to work, working out how we can do that. I'm so prone to that. But actually, Lord, what are you saying? What is this that you are saying to me? The pondering gives us the strategy.
This is both a corporate thing for you guys — the pondering of what does this mean — and as a mission house, we've been wrestling with what it looks like to be a missions organisation with a church department versus a church with a missions department. It's totally changed our mentality, to the point that we're actually having to ask some of our members not to go out every week because there's nobody there to do anything. They're going out and doing worship in other churches in the city. We're aggressively pursuing sending people to speak and to do worship and to go to prayer meetings. One guy last week is praying about doing church planting. We found another pastor, and I said to him, I challenge you once a week to go to this church and serve this guy.
For us, we've been pondering how we do this. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's in the pondering that God answers what for you guys is going to be the capacity that he's calling you into. I just sense it's going to be a transformational capacity.
The other thing is that it's uncomfortable to walk into destiny. The warfare that comes is profound. So it comes with a warning label this morning.
The call and the cost — Luke 14
Now, you might be sitting there and saying, we had many people at the altar call this morning, you're looking for personal breakthrough and personal revelation. Maybe you're visiting today and you're saying, I don't know how this corporate word applies to me personally. I'm going to try and blend the two this morning with this message. It's called the call and the cost. And then I tagged on, and the blessing, because you've got to have a little bit of sugar in there, right?
What is the call? We're going to go through some scripture here. This is the story that occurs after Jesus teaches about the wedding feast, the invitation to the wedding feast, and the excuses as to why people cannot attend. Then he goes into this.
A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, if you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison — your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even your own life. Otherwise you cannot be my disciple. And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. But don't begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, there's the person who started that building and couldn't afford to finish it. Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down with his counsellors to discuss whether his army of ten thousand could defeat twenty thousand soldiers marching against him? And if he can't, he will send a delegation to discuss terms of peace while the enemy is still far away. So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own. Salt is good for seasoning, but if it loses its flavour, how do you make it salty again? Flavourless salt is good neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.
The very next verse is the parable of the lost sheep.
The Western church and the diluted call
You're going to get a little bit of mass splurging out on you guys and venting a little bit this morning. But perhaps one of the greatest frustrations I have found is that we have so well communicated, Jesus loves you, but we have so failed to communicate the call. He has a plan — not even for your life. He has a plan. Will you put your life into his plan?
The call of the ecclesia — the ecclesia are those who are drawn out of the world into the will of the Father, that they would become like Christ, who says, I only do what I see my Father doing. I just perceive that — and I'm certainly not saying that you lovely Christians, we're talking about the other guys, right — but the culture of Christianity that exists in the Western world has almost said, you can follow him and be a part of the great multitude, and you can give what is comfortable, and that's enough. And the radical call here is to everything.
The will of the Father would become so much our priority that when, as Andrew used the scripture this morning, when David wishes for a drink, it becomes, I'll go, I'll lay down my life to do what is beating on your heart.
The call to missions and unreached peoples
We're talking about missions in this church, and I believe that the call to mission is only possible when we see the price tag on the call. Without that, we do missions in the limited capacity of — if you imagine there's a circle around me, and we live in this circle, and we say, anything within this realm, you can speak to me. Have you ever been through seasons where it's like the Lord's not speaking? God, why are you not there? Why are you not speaking to me? I need the direction. I need a word. I need something. And the reason is God's speaking outside the circle, but we don't know how to hear there because we've ruled ourselves out of the everything.
This is why we must surrender everything. And the question is, well, if we give everything, are we all homeless and without anything? We're going to answer that question soon. But we have to come to a place that we would be willing, because there is a cost to the call and it will be tested. If it has not been tested in your life, it is coming.
Luke 18, verse 8 — fascinating scripture. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, shall he find faith on the earth? When Christ returns, will he find faith on the earth? If your definition of faith is the belief system in Christ, that is one realm of thinking about faith. But what we understand faith now to be is the will of the Father. Will we find people who are doing the will of the Father as opposed to their own life? It both excites me and terrifies me that the cost of the call is everything. Because it means that at any moment, God could say to me, I want you to give up your house. Would we do that?
One of the things I've noticed — I'll often call people to come on a short-term missions trip, and there's this almost — because of what we've established in Christianity, where the foundation of the church is to go into all the world, because Christ is returning all nations to him. This is patterned in the Old Testament, right? Genesis chapter 1, God forms man, breathes life, and commissions him to go into all the world. In the New Testament, Christ comes. He is the new Adam. He breathes on the disciples and says, receive the Holy Spirit, then commissions them into the world.
The problem is the humans are congregating at Babel. So he comes down and splits their languages. In the New Testament, he gathers them together and then comes down and speaks in many languages and says, go. So we are in a time period in the creation narrative, the story of the world. We are in what we call the latter days, which means that the agenda of the Lord in this time is the redemption of all people.
The encounter at Guangzhou Airport
I was in Guangzhou Airport doing a transfer through China, and I was just like, I'm going to go and share the gospel with somebody. So I'm sitting in the airport and there's this guy charging his phone, and I went up and said, can I use the space beside you? He said, yes, you can. So I said, why are you travelling? And we started talking. He was going to do some work, and he said, what are you travelling for? I thought, this is my opportunity. So I said, well, actually, I'm a pastor and I'm going to do missions work. And he said, oh, what's a pastor? I'm thinking, language barrier, okay. It's a minister. What's a minister? I said, you know, Christianity. He's like, what's that? I was like, you know, church. You know the church building? And he's like, what's church? So I got out my phone and I'm showing him pictures. He's like, I don't know. I was like, okay, Jesus. You know Jesus? What? I've been doing missions for years and it blew my mind. This guy had no idea.
So I go back home, wrestling with this. And World Outreach contacts me and they're like, we want somebody in New Zealand to help mobilise people into unreached people groups. And I'm like, okay, Lord, this was you. You were preparing me for this. I kid you not, I open up my Bible to the book of Romans, and there's a passage where Paul says, I go to where the gospel has not been preached, lest I build on another man's work. And I opened it up and said, okay, this is what you want me to do.
I then found out — I'm probably going to get these numbers wrong, so I'm going to go on the conservative side — there are 1.3 billion people who have never heard the name of Jesus. I was telling a friend about this and he said, why don't you do some online courses and advertising online? I'm like, first of all, they don't speak the same language as me. Second of all, there is no internet access in most of these places. It's kind of like asking your grandparents to go online and do a webinar. It's just not happening. It's going into a world that is so foreign.
And so the passion of the Lord in this duration from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to Revelation 7, verse 9 — gathering every nation, tribe, and tongue — is the gospel to go out. And somehow it's kind of got stuck. It's got stuck in our countries.
Thailand has less than 2% Christian. Vietnam, China — these countries that we hear have so much breakthrough. The gospel is exploding right now in Nepal. I'm not sure if you saw the news with Nepal. We're actually working in that area where the floods were, planting a Bible college. The people we're working with are all safe, but unfortunately it's just been eating me up over the weekend — there are churches and pastors that were just wiped out. And the gospel is just exploding in these countries.
What burdens my heart is that I come back — and again, this is just my own issue, I'm trying to work through this with the Lord — but I come back and I say to people, do you want to go? And the circle is this big. I can see a disconnectedness, which I understand. It's not like there's no relationship there. But there's a disconnectedness. The theology of church has become, the Lord blesses me because he loves me.
I have Keith Green playing in my car. Who knows Keith Green? And his words, asleep in the light, just punch me in the stomach when I need it. And I just wonder if the church is flaming a little bit in the West because the call to that which burns on the Father's heart is so removed that we've looked at the New Zealand, the Australian, the American dream. Do we have the house? Do we have the land? Do we have the car? Do we have the job, the career ladder? And we're waiting for everything to be ready before we go.
Business advice somebody gave to me — they said, build your business up so that from it you can overflow wealth. I've had so many people say that to me, and every time I just can't do it, because somebody comes along who wants to go on the mission field and we just have to fund them there and then. The burning in our hearts, the unconventional ways which God calls us to leave the comfort zone.
Joy in the cost — personal testimony of depression
The best time joy comes is in the middle of tremendous suffering. When the cost is so high that something in us breaks and we can't continue and we have to choose to walk in the supernatural joy.
I walked through depression for several years, and one of the key scriptures that got me out of it was, the joy of the Lord is my strength. The question was not that I felt the joy. The question was, would I choose that Christ would be enough for me? I just had to let go of the life I wanted to live. I had just all of this lined up as to how my life was supposed to look. I just believe that some people here — your heart is good, your heart is ready to pay the price — but we just live in a world that is messaging us all the time to hold on to the life we want. Some of us need to let that go. We need to let go of the suffering of, it didn't work out, the marriage didn't work out, the finances didn't work out, the job didn't work out. There's so much pain in there, and we can grieve that process, but the call is so strong. Our lives are like grass.
The story of the missionary who walked to India
Several years ago I heard this story from a missionary — unfortunately that missionary has fallen from grace, but his story has so impacted me as to the origin of his call. It goes like this. He was in a Bible college in Germany and he woke up with somebody shaking his bed. It was so violent he thought that his roommate had got up and was shaking his bed to wake him up, and he was really mad. He looked around and no one was there. He said, okay God, if you're speaking to me, tell me what you want to do. So he falls asleep, the bed shakes again, he wakes up, and he just hears, follow me.
He doesn't know where the Lord's going. The door's open. So he grabs his bag — I've got my bag here — grabs his bag, he's got his glasses on, gathers money in his pocket, and he's walking out at six in the morning down the street, not knowing where he's going. Lord, tell me where to go. He gets on a bus or something, and that night he sleeps on a park bench. He wakes up and the Lord's not speaking to him clearly. He says, I don't know where to go. And the Lord said, I told you to give up everything. Why do you have your bag? He's like, but I have all my clothes in my bag, Lord, what are you talking about? So he takes his bag and puts it on the park bench and walks down the street. He's got money in his pocket — I don't know if he gave it away or he dropped it — but he leaves the money behind. He's like, okay, that's everything. And the Lord says to him, why are you wearing glasses? He's like, God, I need to see, what are you talking about? So he takes off his glasses and leaves them on the park bench.
And he walks from Germany to India. When he arrives in India — it's a long walk, he hitchhiked, and there were many stories on the way, nearly got kidnapped, all these crazy adventures — he gets to India and he's sick because of some curry he ate. He's got dysentery or something. He arrives at the border and the border officials are really concerned that he's going to die. They think, we don't want him to die here, he's going to be our problem. So they pick him up and carry him about a hundred metres into the desert on the India side and drop him down to die.
He's lying there dying and this man comes up to him and says, what are you doing? He says, I've come here to follow my Jesus. The man says, where are your friends? He says, I don't have any friends. Where is your family? I don't have any family. And the man says, now you know what it's like, and you're ready. This man picks him up and carries him to a train and puts him on the train, and the people in the carriage nurse him back to health, give him food and water. He ends up being a missionary in India.
Surrender, breaking, and blessing — the loaves and fishes
We just have to get to a place where the call is so strong that we're willing to sacrifice — and sacrifice is a big word that we love in church — community. We're willing to sacrifice the church home. We're willing to sacrifice our plans. Maybe our health isn't good enough. Maybe our family isn't wanting us to go or not ready. Maybe the fears are controlling us. Maybe our friendships are holding us back. Maybe our finances or our work.
Let me remind you of this scripture. If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison — your father, your mother, your wife, your children, your brothers, and your sisters. Yes, even your own life. You have to be willing to die. And so what the Lord requires us to do is to put on the altar all of the things that we're holding on to. Here's how you know what they are — because you're already thinking about them.
I love this about books versus movies. Books leave it up to the imagination, whereas movies suggest what the scenario looks like. I want to leave it up to your imagination. What is the cost that God is calling you to pay?
I love the story of the five loaves and two fishes. Can you imagine being in a crowd, having your lunch, and looking around and being like, these people didn't pack anything. They are so unorganised. I was ready and they weren't. And Jesus, through his disciples — it's amazing that sometimes Jesus turns up through someone that we least expect — and he says, can I have that? Can you imagine being a person on that day that said, no? Sorry, mate. This is my lunch.
At that moment where those who said yes gave the bread and the fish, Jesus takes it and then he breaks it. This is another message — that what we give to him must be broken. Our will, our dreams, our life. We have a society that is saying, chase your dreams. We speak to our young people, what do you want to do? Now let's break that dream. Let's give that dream to the Lord. Let's surrender that thing, that he would break it. Then he prays and he blesses it. Thank you for giving what was so dear for you to give. That your heart is so tender in that area and you still gave it to me. That there's a cost involved and you still offered it to me. The university contract. The phone call from a relative. Whatever that thing is. And then after he has broken and blessed it, God brings a multiplication.
The call and the cost and the blessing. The reality is, God can do far abundantly more than you can ask or think if you are just willing to let go. Why would God call me to let go of the very thing he gave me? Because it will be a snare to you if you're holding on. We have to live with open hands.
What does that look like for you guys as Rivers Apostolic Centre to live with an open hand? What does it look like for your church to give back to God what he has given us?
Paul's contentment and the open hand
In this way, Paul says, I have learned to live with much and I have learned to live with little. Why? Because the only thing he has is what God gives him. He has let go of everything that he has deserved or earned. He has let go of title. He has let go of position. He has let go of finance. He has let go of everything that was going to stop him, that he was holding on to. And so when it comes, God can come up to him and say, can I have my vehicle back? Can I have my house? Can I have my land back? And Paul goes, sure. Wasn't mine in the first place.
But it also means when it comes, the blessing is that much sweeter.
Personal testimony of provision — the house and the car
When I served the Lord, I was five years out of high school and I had absolutely nothing. I remember a car driving past me — I lived in the middle of nowhere in New Zealand and you needed a car to get anywhere, so I had to rely on the YWAM vehicles going into town. This car goes past me and I was like, I really want a vehicle. This was back when Facebook was kicking off, and I go on Facebook and I see not only do my friends have cars, but they're now buying homes. And I'm like, dude, I am so far behind.
I gave up that time to the Lord. Then we went and worked in a church. We had absolutely nothing. We'd saved up money and the Lord told us to give it away. We were trying to do the responsible thing. My wife has taken the child out, but she'd be rolling her eyes right now, because sometimes God doesn't call me to do something and I'm just so eager to do it that I'm giving away things that perhaps we shouldn't. But there are times when we're trying to provide for ourselves and the Lord says, just let that go. So I gave it up.
A couple of years later, I'm sitting in church and this prophet comes through and he points to me and says, God's going to give you a house because you took care of his house. Never mind the car — I'm getting a full upgrade here. We go to India on a missions trip. We're meeting with this highly eccentric pastor over there, eating a meal together. He turns around, looks, and points — in true eccentric missionary fashion — and says, God is going to give you a bigger car and a bigger house. I'm like, there's no way this is possible.
Within two years, we had a bigger car and a house. I cannot explain to you the miracles one after one. The listing on the house was — this is your calling. That was the advertising slogan. It was so amazing. We walked into the house and were setting everything up. I used to work in a Christian bookshop and they had damaged goods. One of them was a chopping board that I'd kept in storage. We get into the house, put the chopping board out, and we both stand and look at it. And it says on it, rejoice in the bounty the Lord God has given you.
The blessing is not guaranteed — but the Father is good
The reason I'm saying this is because you have to understand that though there's a cost, if you're willing to let everything go — I'm not guaranteeing, because some people just die. Sometimes it doesn't go well. The disciples all lose their lives. Sometimes the blessings don't come. And this is where we have to be okay with the blessings not coming, because otherwise we'll be tithing so that we get something back, and we enter into a lower form of religion and striving. We need to be willing to give it, but the reason why is because the Father is good. He knows what we need.
We came over here as a family going, should we be coming here? How are we going to afford this? We took the step of faith. We would love to see a snake — how cool would that be? And we're looking online, we could go to this part, we could go to the zoo, we could do all these things, and we just didn't know. Then yesterday we get to handle about eight or nine snakes. One of them is the rarest python in the world. And it's just like God's saying, no, no, no — when you take the step of faith, I can bring the blessing.
God does want to bless us, but the blessing sometimes requires everything. This is why the Christian has the eternal perspective — that even in this life, if we lose everything, who do we celebrate? The martyrs of the faith. The ones who have given everything. Because we realise how much it costs. And we know that they are getting their reward in heaven. Why store up treasures on earth where rust and moth will deteriorate? Store up your treasures in heaven.
God loves you and he has a wonderful plan. Will you put your life into his plan?
The urgency of the unreached and the timeline to Revelation 7
There are 1.8 billion people that have never heard the name of Jesus. If they wanted to hear the name of Jesus, they wouldn't even know who to turn to. On the plane back from Nepal last year, a girl sat beside me and I was reading my Bible. She was looking over — for the first time in her life at the Bible. She turns to her friend and in Nepali she says, what is he reading? The man explains that I'm a Christian. And she's like, what's that?
We are on a timeline to Revelation 7, verse 9. What the Lord is going to do in your church — I believe the call is coming to exponentially see the Lord do something through you. And he's doing it not to bless you, but that his kingdom will come. Which is the cost.
Here's how you know if you're preaching the gospel. This happened to me very first as a Christian. Somebody said to me, I can't do it. I can't face my friends and family knowing I've become a Christian. My heart broke. But the reality is, they're hearing the call when it's too hard sometimes.
Closing scripture and prayer — Isaiah 48
For us who have made the decision, let me close with reading this scripture and then I'm going to pray. Isaiah 48 — God speaks to his people and he says:
"Listen to me, O family of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel and born into the family of Judah. Listen, you who take oaths in the name of the Lord and call on the God of Israel. You don't keep your promises, even though you call yourself the holy city and talk about depending on the God of Israel, whose name is the Lord of heaven's armies."
I need that word. We need that word — that the Lord would say, remember when you gave your life? I've come to collect on the call.
I know this might seem — I don't want this to seem a word of condemnation. This is a word of conviction. Condemnation says there is something wrong in you. Conviction says you are not behaving according to the calling that is upon your life. And my conviction today is that in any area, as God prepares you for a greater capacity, he would minister to you now. There is no condemnation in Christ, but that you would step into the fullness of the calling.
Father, right now, we just bring on the altar anything in our life that has demanded the attention that you have called the believer into. We are not a church with a missions department. We are your missions organisation. Your number one organisation on earth to take the gospel to all peoples, nations, tribes, and tongues. You have commissioned us as your first and foremost strategy to reaching the world, in partnership with you. Not even for you, but with you. That you would be with us in the call.
And even though we recognise that that call is local as well as overseas, and that all of us can go, Lord, we ask that you would put a burning in our hearts for every place. You would put a burning in our hearts for the nations as well as our own street. That our neighbours — we'd be so consumed with the call.
Father, we release to you now, in the mighty name of Jesus, every relationship, soul wound, every tie, every covetousness that is keeping us from the call. In Jesus' mighty name.